On Sept. 8 in Leadville, it looked a whole lot more like winter than summer. At Colorado Mountain College’s Leadville campus, an early cold front gave ski area operations students the opportunity to make snow at the campus’s terrain park.
Jump starting the season
LEADVILLE – Talk about getting a head start. When a massive cold front hit Colorado on Tuesday, Sept. 8, it felt more like the beginning of winter than the tail end of summer. At 10,200 feet, Colorado Mountain College Leadville was primed for the campus’s ski area operations students to be the first to take advantage of plummeting temperatures – ideal for making snow.
Ski area ops students worked into the early morning hours of Sept. 9 - just like their professional counterparts.
From 2:30 p.m. through 7:30 the next morning, students worked alongside ski area ops faculty, firing up the college’s snow guns and experiencing what both day and nighttime snowmaking is all about.
“We were able to test our new equipment,” said Brian Rosser, CMC Leadville ski area operations associate professor. “Also, it was a great pre-season training exercise, before it really counts.”
Colorado Mountain College’s ski area operations program is based in Leadville and offers a range of certificates and degrees.
