Most ski areas that have much terrain above timberline use snowfences to capture and manage snow. We deploy a lot of snowfences at A-Basin. From the top of our Upper Mountain Lifts, Pallavicini, Norway, Lenawee Mountain and Zuma, numerous snowfences exist to capture snow. In these high places, there is no shortage of snow but, sometimes the wind likes to deposit the snow in places difference from where we like to deposit snow. Fences slow down the wind and snow a bit and the snow falls to the ground on the down-wind side of the fence. A well placed fence literally catches tons and tons of snow.
So far this summer we have already built hundreds of feet of fences in some of the highest places in The Beavers. These fences will deposit snow on some of the more wind swept areas and the snowcats will connect the dots (snow piles) creating ski trails that lead to areas of heavy wind deposited snow. We have used this same strategy to make great ski trails out of Columbine, Larkspur, Lenawee Face, Norway and Grizzly Road. The fences are extraordinary tools.
