EAGLE, IDAHO — Gateway Parks is planning to be open till March 1st. On Friday, Idaho News 6 took a dive into how the team keeps the fun going when the weather warms up.
- The park has five snow guns that are able to make around 300-400 lbs of snow a minute.
- The staff can manipulate the density of the snow.
- The park will be open until March 1st.
- To check out the Gateway Parks website, click here.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
If you look around me, there isn't a lot of snow on the ground. But thats not the case at Eagle Island State Park. I'm your Eagle neighborhood reporter, Alexander Huddleston, at Gateway Parks, learning how they make giant snow lopes like these out of snow cannons like that one.
Gateway Parks has become a popular cold-weather attraction for folks in the Treasure Valley who may not want to travel far for a little snow tubing. But how does the park keep the fun going when winter weather warms up?
"As you can see, the snow deteriorates, melts down, and gets pretty slushy. Then it freezes over at night and just does the same cycle over and over again," said Operations Manager Mitchell Mesecher.
Staff members showed me the ins and outs of keeping the snow nice and fresh.
Hill Manager Hayden Harvey pointed out, "When we get our water, we are pumping it straight out of the pond here."
Harvey tells me that water is then pumped to a trailer where it is mixed with a protein that helps the water freeze faster.
"This is our pump that goes from the pond to the manifold and out to the snow guns," continued Harvey.
The park's five snow guns can produce two to three hundred pounds of snow a minute, with one bigger cannon creating up to 450 pounds a minute.
Harvey walked me through the process, saying, "We have an automated system that will kick on the fans. Water will shoot through the fans, spin it around, shoot out of the nucleators and compressors right here, then shoot the water out up into the air, and once we hit that 28 degrees and that good temperature, we make more snow."
But because the snow can change throughout the day, Mesecher and other staff members will throw salt on the slopes.
"So that way when the wind hits it and the sun hits it, it all bounces off instead of sinking through it. So basically we preserve the snow as long as we can," added Mesecher.
It's a lot of work to keep the fun going.
Local Hailey Hall smiled, saying, "Days like this, where there is no snow, we are still able to enjoy tubing, and hanging out with our friends and family, by building our own snow which I think is very exciting.
If you haven't made your way out yet, don't worry! Gateway Parks will be open for tubing till March 1st.
