Arrive in style on the ski train...
Enjoy extra days on the slopes and no surcharge for skis or boards with Eurostar Direct Ski Trains.
Book now!
Self-drive ski holidays in France
Travel to France by ferry and some of the best self drive skiing in the world. Enjoy the freedom of taking unlimited baggage and up to 9 people per car via .
Book your journey with P&O Ferries
Find a hotel
Booking a hotel has never been easier with accorhotels.com, Europe's largest hotel group.
Why pay for your skis?
Experience complete comfort on SWISS flights to Geneva and enjoy the added bonus of taking your skis at no extra cost.
Pick up and ski this winter
Forget about queuing for a bus at the airport, low cost car hire - with a ski rack if necessary, will get you to where you want to go with a minimum of fuss. See the
Great deals to ski destinations
Flights from Southwest England, Birmingham and the Isle of Man to Chambery or Geneva opens up a wealth of ski opportunities in the northern Alps.
Book with Flybe now!
Winter & Ski Home
Winter Activities
All About Artificial Snowmaking
Above: Portable snow-making units in operation in Sixte Fer à Cheval.
In an increasingly competitive marketplace, top ski resorts now need to offer a lot more than good snow conditions. Without them, though, there’s no skiing, so investment in new and upgraded snowmaking infrastructure is steadily increasing. To find out how it works in a major ski resort we visited Flaine in the Grand Massif, one of the pioneers of artificial snowmaking, for a priviliged look at just what goes on behind the scenes.
Artificial snow-making, or ‘neige de culture’, can kick-start a season by laying a firm bed of snow before the real stuff arrives. But there’s a snag. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that projected water droplets are never going to transform themselves into snow flakes (technically ‘micro-crystals’) unless air temperatures are already below freezing. So for much of the time only higher altitude resorts and those with an intemperate micro-climate (it happens) can benefit.
To the snow factory...
In 1973 Flaine pioneered artificial snow-making, and now has one of the most extensive and sophisticated systems in the French Alps. Here's how it works:
Large purpose-built nearby reservoirs supply the central usine à neige (literally ‘snow factory’) which then pumps both water and air at high pressure through a network of underground pipes to batteries of snow-canon sited around the mountain. The entire network is then computer-managed under the watchful eye of the factory operator.
Above, L-R: A sectioned snow cannon showing the inner nozzle whose water is vaporised by compressed air passing around it; nozzles ready for deployment.
He’s not the only one. Environmentalists, never the greatest enthusiasts for large ski developments, are also monitoring the expansion and evolution of artificial snow-making, which has developed into a far more advanced science than most skiers realise. Snow is picky stuff — in order to be potential snowflake parents projected droplets will need to be between 0.2 and 0.8mm in diameter. Both fixed and portable snow-cannon units are perfectly capable of providing just that, but once the mixture leaves the nozzle it can take a second or two to crystallise. Or not; natural snow forms when individual droplets collect around dust and other particles present in the atmosphere (a process known as heterogeneous nucleation). Snow canon, on the other hand, need help if their precise droplets are not going to simply produce ice particles (homogeneous nucleation). Result: miniature hail-stones.
Artificial insemination for snow...
One answer is to add a bacterial protein known as Pseudomonas syringae to the water supply. The result, even with temperatures barely touching zero, is near-instantaneous crystallisation, creating the perfect artificial snow. According to York Snow Inc., whose Snowmax Snow Inducer was widely adopted by the North American ski industry, the bacteria are perfectly harmless, being already present in vast numbers in the natural environment. Just to be sure, though, they’re mostly ‘neutralised’ during the manufacturing process. Europe, on the other hand, has been less eager to adopt the additive approach, unconvinced by claims of zero environmental impact.
Above, L-R: Computerised management monitors individual cannon as well as the complete system; high-pressure pump unit in Flaine’s impressive ‘usine à neige’.
In any case, there’s now another, simpler option. Newly-developed catalytic systems offer similar dramatic improvements in snow quality, so the latest generation of snow cannon require only ambient, rather than compressed air. Between them, these developments could halve operational energy costs - or for the same running cost - double the terrain equipped with snowmaking. The downside is hefty capital investment in new hardware (each cannon requires its own catalytic unit, priced at around 1,000 euro apiece), but if electricity prices continue to rise the present four-year break-even period is certain to shorten.
Either way, artificial snow-making is expensive, running costs generally far outstripping those more visible consumers of energy, the ski lifts...
© Roger Moss
Our Hosts...
We produced this report in the Grand Massif ski domaine, situated in the Haute-Savoie region of the French Alps. One of the largest linked ski areas in France, it comprises over 133 runs (265km) with 78 ski lifts which connect the ski villages of :
Flaine, Les Carroz, Samoëns, Morillon and Sixt Fer à Cheval
All about ski-lifts
Ski-lifts play a key role in providing the perfect ski experience. We look at different types and how they work.
Out with les dameurs
When the sun goes down the piste groomers start their work. We discover what goes on while you're sleeping.
All about high-speed gondola lifts
A privileged insight into the inner workings of the Grand Massif Express, Samoëns.
Meanwhile, behind
the scenes...
A day in the life of a
ski resort, in the company of the unseen mountain professionals.
