Member Introductions

Re: Member Introductions

Postby WVterrainparkbuilder on 15 Nov 2008, 22:58

My name is Cam, I am a terrain park cat operator at Waterville Valley,NH. I build and groom all of the parks along with our other park cat op, and build and cut our superpipe. I also groom many of our trails and do some of our winch grooming and snowmaking. Pretty much anything else that has to do with the parks&pipe I do. I also do some contract work for SPT at the US open in VT doing course maintenance.

I have been doing this for 2 years now, so havent been running a cat for too long but attended cutters camp in oregon this past spring and had previous terrain park experience.

We run 4 BR-350's and a BR-350 winch cat, a HPG17 for cutting the pipe (unfortunetly) as well as a BR-275 plus ME for our shop guys to get around, a BR-400 with a big cargo area in the back for snowmaking and a Pisten Bully 100 for the nordic trails. I love what I do and am happy to see that a forum was finally created for all us cat drivers and mechanics etc.
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby dmoulton on 04 Dec 2008, 08:04

Hello,
Dave from Mount Snow, happy to see the new site and get some of our staff on as well. I have been the Mountain Operations Director here for roughly the past three years. Started in the business at a small area in Quechee Vermont and moved up to Killington for 18 years before transferring to Mount Snow. Our Grooming fleet is a mix of PB's and Prinoth, currently 11 machines. I am hardly the expert but will look at the site for information and insite.

Looking forward to another great season.
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby 737layincords on 15 Dec 2008, 11:23

Hello all,
Troy from Bowdoin, ME - now living in Killington VT. Still a rookie, Jumped on board last year free grooming, loved it, back for my second year here both free grooming and terrain park, looking forward to the upcoming season and absorbing alot of information I believe this forum has to offer. Thanks Patrick & Curt, I think this forum is a great Idea.
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby Cletus on 18 Dec 2008, 20:42

howdy
i'm a third year groomer/snowmaker at whitefish mtn resort. really enjoy the challenge of the work and being out in the mountains . also enjoying not being a newb at it anymore, though i still learn lots everytime i'm behind the sticks and have a long way to go. looking forward to picking up some tips and hearing how other mountains operate their fleets.
about once a year or so i break out my camera for some night shots at the mtn and took some the other day. check out my snow album at http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1 ... 1044540510
hope everyone has a great season, ours just got rolling and we had our first good pow day today.
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby runnin' rope on 19 Dec 2008, 23:30

Hey,

My name is Nick and I am a third year operator at Killington. I have worked in the parks occasionally since the end of my first year, but this will be my first full season as a park groomer, not a groomer who can groom park. I am in the final year of Green Mountain College's resort management program and we will see where it takes me from here. This year, I have run a winch more consistently than before and definitely enjoy it more than free grooming, and in a different way than parks...kinda hard to explain. Any way, I'm looking forward to hearing what happens at other areas and learning different ways to do things.
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby b52hgolf on 07 Jan 2009, 01:53

Greetings,

This is my first season running cats for cash. I have previously operated the odd cat for citizens in Winter Park and some of the neighbors here in Marble. I started driving the utility cats at Snowmass early this winter and was fortunate enough to transfer to the graveyard grooming crew at Aspen Highlands. I am operating a new Prinoth Bison with less than 350 hrs. It is a Cadillac on traks. 8-)
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby BMW on 28 Jan 2009, 20:26

Hi guys,

My name is Brad I am 27 and live on the South Shore of Mass. I guess you could say I am more of a enthusiast than actual cat operator. Although I have had several opportunities to be in the drivers seat of a few different cats but have not been employed by any ski areas. I was a skier before snowboarding came out, then switched over to snowboarding full time. Going up north to places like Attitash, Sunday River, Wildcat, and Loon was standard during the winter and I was always fascinated by snow making and grooming. I have really taken advantage of the internet and all the info there is out there about grooming and snowcats. I am glad I ran into this site, I am starting to see alot more sites started by operators, for operators and fans and I think its great. Back in the early 90's none of the info from the companies was readily available to people who didn't work at ski areas so its good to see sites like this. I'm sure some of you guys are aware of another good site for mostly pictures but is very extensive and well run- SNOW-GROOMER.NET check it out. Also didn't know if there were any operators from wildcat on here. I haven't been there in years and was wondering what kind of cats they are running these days? If I remember they had a bunch of old T4 prinoths awhile back. Thanks
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby joshski on 29 Jan 2009, 16:02

I don't think any of the Wildcat operators are on here - at least I have not run across any of them.
They still have the old dinosaurs there, but they have some newer stuff also.

BMW wrote:Hi guys,

My name is Brad I am 27 and live on the South Shore of Mass. I guess you could say I am more of a enthusiast than actual cat operator. Although I have had several opportunities to be in the drivers seat of a few different cats but have not been employed by any ski areas. I was a skier before snowboarding came out, then switched over to snowboarding full time. Going up north to places like Attitash, Sunday River, Wildcat, and Loon was standard during the winter and I was always fascinated by snow making and grooming. I have really taken advantage of the internet and all the info there is out there about grooming and snowcats. I am glad I ran into this site, I am starting to see alot more sites started by operators, for operators and fans and I think its great. Back in the early 90's none of the info from the companies was readily available to people who didn't work at ski areas so its good to see sites like this. I'm sure some of you guys are aware of another good site for mostly pictures but is very extensive and well run- SNOW-GROOMER.NET check it out. Also didn't know if there were any operators from wildcat on here. I haven't been there in years and was wondering what kind of cats they are running these days? If I remember they had a bunch of old T4 prinoths awhile back. Thanks
Josh Nelson
PistenBully New England
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby joshski on 29 Jan 2009, 16:11

I've been on here a little while, but never got around to introducing myself... I am Josh Nelson and I'm the PistenBully representative in New England. I've been in New England a little over 5 years now after growing up in Colorado and living in Jackson, WY, numerous places in CO, and a short stint in Reno, NV. I cover Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Mass for sales. I get thousands of hours in the right seat and as many as I can in the left. I groom at Stowe when I have time. Patrick, thanks for putting together this site, I hope to see it continue to grow and become a great resource for everyone in the industry. Think Snow (at least until April)!
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Re: Member Introductions

Postby snowwizard on 30 Jan 2009, 18:08

Hi everyone. I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Neil. Have been in the ski industry for about 30 years +. All in the Mt. Ops side of the industry. Started out stapling tickets at the ticket booth and grew from there. I consider my self very fortunate to start in the industry when I did, have had the great opportunity to learn the business from people that used their creativity to it make it what it is today. Started operating snow-cats when I was 18. Don’t know how many hours I’ve spent in tractors, but there were some years when we started in Oct. and groomed until Memorial Day. The first tractor I started grooming in was a Packmaster by Thiokol. No blade, standard transmission. Sure was fun shifting gears? With the Packmaster you had to pull drags around. Rolls, Powder makers, Mogul Planners. And Mt. Tillers. First’s blade machine was a Sprite also by Thiokol with a 6 way blade. Up, down. Side to side and curl. Grooming has come along way in the past 30 years. Thiokol had some nice tractors, The 3700 Hydro Stat was nice in it's time. Think they were the first to use a cat power plant. Now cat motors have returned. One of the biggest changes in grooming I thought was the innovation of the winch tractor. Thanks for all the manufacturers and the creative people in there companies for the progression in grooming tractors. Have had the chance to run a lot of different tractors over the years and see many changes. Some of the best manufactures reps I’ve worked with were the late Joe Avery with PB and Bid Simard of Bombardier. Bib did a lot of work to put Bombardier (Now Prinoth)and the map for grooming equipment. Joe Avery worked hard on PB to keep making changes for their tractors. Valley Engineering over in New York made and sold the drags for the tractors. I think it was the Brandt family at West Mt. Ski area. Pretty much changing farm equipment into snow grooming use. For along time PB was the Cadillac of the industry. One of my favorite tractors still today was the PB 320. It was like a D8 on snow. I think one of the first low RPM tractors. Ran i around 1500 rpm's. Some what compared to the new Prinoth 500 that is out. I still today have to admit that the PB is the best engineered tractor today. But the Bison by Prinoth is one nice tractor. Sure some say its apples to oranges with tractors today. Yes it is in a way. The best tractor for any mountain is the one that best fits their grooming style. I have worked at 5 different Mt.s in my career and have seen different grooming methods. Maintaining snow surfaces today has varied from area to area. It has become a lot easier for sure over the years. The amount of acreage being covered today by grooming is amazing compared to 30 years ago. Enjoy what ever tractor you have, because the changes in grooming tractors have come along ways. Hope more are on the way. Be glad to share any ideas or methods that I’ve learned with any one in this forum.
Last edited by snowwizard on 01 Feb 2009, 19:38, edited 1 time in total.
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