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Y <br />0 <br />0 <br />0 <br />U <br />N <br />a <br />0 <br />U <br />streams supplying downstream cities or <br />and ranchers in the Plateau Valley and <br />along the Colorado River. <br />"We like to think of our slopes and <br />snowmaking as a storage area for their <br />summer water," says Dirks. <br />Snowmaking does require a water <br />right. And ski resorts have invested <br />thousands of dollars obtaining these <br />rights, as well as making sure water will <br />be available when they need it. <br />Vail Resorts, for example, helped <br />construct Black Lakes, a pair of now <br />twice - expanded reservoirs located along <br />Interstate 70 at Vail Pass. Water from <br />these high - altitude reservoirs can now <br />be metered into Gore Creek to supple- <br />ment low flows caused by snowmaking, <br />or to supply downstream calls for water <br />from senior diverters. It's an elaborate <br />system, taking water diverted from the <br />stream and pumping it back some three <br />miles up Gore Creek to the location of <br />Vail's snowmaking intake. <br />So who invented this technology to <br />in March 1950 by Art Hunt, Wayne Pierce <br />and Dave Ritchey of TEY Manufacturing <br />Corp in Milford, Conn. But other materi- <br />als from the Broadmoor Hotel indicate <br />that an engineer with a small agricultural <br />equipment firm may have discovered <br />snowmaking in the same year, when he <br />was working on a way to protect citrus <br />crops from early frost. <br />"I'm sure it was some guy who was <br />making five bucks an hour and came up <br />with the idea," Williams says, laughing. <br />"Some seasonal ski bum." <br />Williams predicts that in the next 50 to <br />100 years, snowmaking will become more <br />popular at resorts in lower elevations as <br />climate variations bring less snow. <br />"Lower areas will receive less snow, <br />and not until later in the year," he says. <br />'Areas like Aspen, Keystone will have to <br />start making more snow. <br />"The ski areas are conc 'rn <br />I 9 <br />that and ... they're hedging th <br />They're trying to gobble, wa., <br />for that." <br />give Mother Nature a boost? <br />"I have absolutely no id <br />Williams. He's heard the diff <br />of snowmaking's i 1% <br />to information rTff7Too_ra oraA Ski <br />Museum, snowmaking was develQnQ; <br />An unidentified businessman <br />takes at turn at early snow- <br />making at Ski Broadmoor, near <br />Colorado Springs. The resort <br />was the second in Colorado <br />to try out artificial snow after <br />Magic Mountain, an area out- <br />side Golden, folded in 1959, <br />after only a year in operation. <br />The Broadmoor purchased <br />Magic Mountain's snowmak- <br />ing equipment, says the state's <br />ski historian, and the idea <br />caught on. <br />While ski resorts may have the money <br />to invest in water rights, some streams <br />are already over- appropriated. Williams <br />predicts that attempts to take water from <br />high- mountain streams that are at their <br />minimum flows will be very controver- <br />sial. <br />',The problem is going to be hav- <br />ing enough water to make snow," says <br />Williams. "You end up with questions <br />like, 'If you take that water and make <br />snow instead of leaving that water in the <br />stream, are you losing more to evapo- <br />transpiration?' Nobody really knows." , <br />