by 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.