{"id":1839121,"date":"2026-03-21T15:01:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:01:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1839121"},"modified":"2026-03-21T15:01:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T12:01:50","slug":"mammoth-mountain-ca-snow-farming-a-dutiful-art-on-an-absolutely-massive-scale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1839121","title":{"rendered":"Mammoth Mountain, CA, \u201cSnow Farming:\u201d A Dutiful Art on an Absolutely Massive Scale"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This image\u2014captured from an aerial point of view\u2014shows resort snowcats farming snow. | Photo courtesy of pistenteam_andermatt<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Give Michelangelo some marble, and you\u2019ll probably get a sculpture.<\/strong> Give him some late-spring snow and a snowcat, and he might be Mammoth Mountain\u2019s Director of Slope Maintenance and the Unbound Terrain Parks, Scott Cherry.<\/p>\n

Cherry organizes the resort crews who keep Mammoth and its terrain parks open long after other ski areas have shut down and transitioned to summer activities.<\/strong> This is because Mammoth is not like other ski areas. Most ski areas don\u2019t consistently build terrain parks and maintain ski trails until the end of May.<\/p>\n

Mammoth plans to keep lifts spinning as late as possible.<\/strong> From the end of April until that fervent closing day, resort crews will give every nail, tooth, and tear they have left in an effort to keep the mountain open and the runs skiable. They do a damn good job. Snowcats will push, pull, extract, and chisel snow off some slopes and onto others in a process that Mammoth refers to as \u201csnow farming.\u201d It\u2019s like sculpting, but in accordance with nature and on a very large scale with very large machinery. Even airborne tools\u2014strapped onto airplanes\u2014get used in the mountain\u2019s unique snow farming system.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe one thing we have on our side that\u2019s a game-changer is SNOWsat<\/a>, which is basically sonar with lidar mapping of our mountain,\u201d Cherry said over the phone. \u201cSo they\u2019ll fly a plane over our mountain, map it for us, and then upload it onto their system and create layers. Then they\u2019ll upload that layering onto a tablet-sized screen inside the snowcats which will tell you within a half-an-inch of where your snow\u2019s at. It\u2019s like a fishfinder.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A snowcat farms snow. | Photo courtesy of prinoth_pistenbully_pics<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The technology described by Cherry is not controlled by him and his team but rather by PistenBully<\/a>, which is contracted with Mammoth.<\/strong> With the use of lidar<\/a>, cat drivers can see exactly where the snow is\u2014and precisely how much of it is left\u2014on a screen inside the snowcat. Cherry can simultaneously look at another map on his computer screen that shows exactly where every cat has gone and moved snow, and what terrain features are still untouched.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s an ongoing, developing technology. But it\u2019s extremely accurate. It\u2019s awesome,\u201d Cherry said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Six of Mammoth\u2019s snowcats are equipped with this software.<\/strong> With digital maps displayed on screens inside the cats, Cherry and his drivers use that information in a way that mimics chess. They observe, contemplate, and strategize which slopes will still hold snow and for how long. Cherry and his team can forecast snow conditions weeks in advance, so it becomes clear which slopes won\u2019t make it. The slopes that are the next to go, Cherry and his team decide, are the ones that drivers will take snow from and redistribute towards those that will still provide decent Spring skiing. It\u2019s challenging work, according to Cherry, and slopes with minimal snow get abandoned all the time\u2014their organs are getting transplanted to other, healthier parts of the mountain.<\/p>\n

Which is when the magic happens.<\/strong> Snowcat operators will show up at 3 in the afternoon (when the snow is soft from the sun\u2019s heat) and work until midnight, before the mountain temperatures harden it into firm, fast-skiing snow. They\u2019ll follow the lidar maps on their screens and go to the exact pinpoint of snow that needs to be moved. They\u2019ll farm that snow, push it out at night, and then groom it. But the way they farm it is where the process gets especially interesting.<\/p>\n

The cut-away section of the mountain next to the red lines shows snow farming in action. Cat drivers slice snow off the slope from top to bottom and move it where they want it. In this case, the snow will be moved down the hill to accommodate Mammoth\u2019s giant airbag jump. | Photo courtesy of Scott Cherry<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cherry describes the snow farming process as \u201ctypewriter-ing.\u201d<\/strong> It starts with finding dirt. Snowcat operators grooming at night will relay to Cherry which slopes are hurting and which need more snow, and then Cherry will go out in a snowcat, typically the next morning, and farm snow for the drivers to shuffle around. He starts on a slope with both movable snow and dirt. This allows him to move the snow much more efficiently than if the snow were sitting on more snow. Working from the top down, Cherry will go back and forth\u2014like he\u2019s driving his cat along the lines of a typewriter\u2019s keyboard\u2014gathering more snow and dirt as he descends each row. By the time he gets to the bottom, he may have a pile of farmed snow that\u2019s 30 feet high or higher.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe better we are at farming the longer we\u2019re able to hold onto our season,\u201d Cherry said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This blend of science and art\u2014which allows one to move around snow as their mind sees fit\u2014also comes into play with Mammoth\u2019s Unbound terrain parks.<\/strong> Cherry said that it\u2019s rare to see terrain parks open at ski areas this late into the Spring\u2014let alone ones of Mammoth\u2019s caliber with giant jumps and complex jib features. And only a handful of ski areas still showcase 60 or 70-foot jumps every season.<\/p>\n

With a background in building terrain parks, Cherry\u2019s career eventually led him to Mammoth, where he got to maximize his potential.<\/strong> When it comes to building a massive park or working with specifics for slopestyle events like Red Bull Recharged<\/a>, Cherry and his crew will sometimes have to farm snow for 14 days before they can begin sculpting certain features. It takes lasting commitment and astute attention to detail to build Mammoth\u2019s competition-grade features and terrain parks, which may not necessarily be noticeable at first glance when watching these competitions on YouTube.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen you see those guys enjoy the product that you\u2019ve spent every waking moment trying to get right, that makes it all worth it,\u201d Cherry said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Scott Cherry loves his job, and it shows.<\/strong> How else would Mammoth swindle Mother Nature into staying open for skiing and riding until August?<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Mammoth Mountain (@mammothmountain)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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This image\u2014captured from an aerial point of view\u2014shows resort snowcats farming snow. | Photo courtesy of pistenteam_andermatt Give Michelangelo some marble, and you\u2019ll probably get a sculpture. Give him some late-spring snow and a snowcat, and he might be Mammoth Mountain\u2019s Director of Slope Maintenance and the Unbound Terrain Parks, Scott Cherry. Cherry organizes the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,267],"class_list":["post-1839121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-snowbrains-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1839121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1839121\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1839121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1839121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1839121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}