By Raúl Revuelta
Zermatt Bergbahnen was the first ski resort to order a new kind of artificial snow system: the IDE’s All Weather Snowmaker. Later Pitztal Gletscherbahnen was the second Company to order, following Zermatt’s footsteps, the snowmaker. IDE Technologies is
a world leader and pioneer in water desalination, wastewater
concentrators and purifiers. The snowmaking technology comes from the
mining industry where it is used to cool the goldmines. Both ski resorts
have launched a new era in snowmaking by choosing the IDE All Weather
Snowmaker from Israel to deliver large amounts of snow at all ambient
temperatures.
The first Snowmaker was assembled and testing in Israel during July 2008. The Snowmakers were shipped from Israel to Slovenia, loaded on a truck convoy and transported to the base stations of the ski resorts. The crews worked hard to transport the heavy equipment up to the mountains. The first unit was lifted to the installation site in Zermatt by cables. The installation was completed in mid November and the Snowmaker was successfully operated last week.
Since the installation site has already been covered by heavy snow for the last few weeks, Zermatt ski resort will commence snowmaking with the new Snowmaker during spring 2009.
The installation of the snowmaker in Pitztal will be completed next month.
