Duck Bill Snowmaker

Snow in the Midwest is not the same as the snow out West; there are many more marginally cold days and thaw days here in Michigan, plus the humidity is considerably higher. Everett realized early that in order to optimize his use of the Mountain he was going to have to supplement Mother Nature’s natural abilities. Everett is quoted saying, “we cobbled up a little tripod stand with a center water jet and an air jet on either side. Then we criss-crossed compressed air into the stream. It worked. We made snow right off. Right then my course was charted. I would chase after snowmaking with the fervor of Ahab hunting Moby Dick.”Δ

The contraption you are looking at now is the newest iteration of the Duck Bill Snowmaker, a design Everett developed in the 1950s. At one point Everett said there were over 500 duckbills spread over the Boyne Mountain Resort property. BOYNE also went on to patent the incredibly efficient Highland Snow Gun in the 1970s, which used six-times less energy than previous snowmakers. It would also make snow at 30 degrees Fahrenheit whereas the competitors had to be 28 degrees Fahrenheit. This slight difference in temperature and humidity was significant for snowmaking in the Midwest.

In an article published in December 2014, President Ed Grice described the logistics of getting resources up the mountain. “If you were to take a bird’s eye view of Boyne Mountain with X-ray vision, you’d see two large pipes – one running up and one running down – on every slope. One carries water at 350 to 400 pounds of pressure and the other is pumping 80 pounds of air.”

You will be seeing several different types of snowmakers as you make your way down to the road. The latest BOYNE snowmaker is called the Low-E fan gun. The Highlands website teaches us, “the true secret weapon in this snow gun is the exclusive Boyne designed water bath technology that is capable of yielding higher production output while achieving lower energy consumption … The composition of the proprietary Boyne Low-E fan gun is courtesy of BOYNE's snowmaking masterminds and our long-time friends from the world's leading snow gun manufacturer, SMI of Midland, Michigan. Each new Low-E fan gun is built on resort grounds and previous models are reclaimed and converted with the necessary upgrades.”

💡 Click Play Video to see a calming video from December 2020 of all the snowguns blasting in the morning.

📸 Attached Media:

-Snowmaking photos from the Boyne Mountain Resort Archives

-"Boyne Mt. Hopes to Ski on Thanksgiving" article from the Petoskey News Review on November 21, 1969

-"Laid-Off Snowmakers Picket at Boyne" article from the Petoskey News Review on February 21, 1977

-"Boyne Mountain: There's snow time like the present" article and photo from the Petoskey News Review on December 23, 1986

-Snowmaking at The Highlands https://www.highlandsharborsprings.com/snowmaking

🔗Links in Text:

-"Better than Coffee" video from the Boyne Mountain Resort facebook page https://www.facebook.com/BoyneMountain/videos/10157237614180670

🏃Turn left and walk along the edge of the woods in the grass. You’ll notice an old green metal structure on top of a cement block.

📚 Bibliography: β Δ Σ ♥