Development of slope maintenance
A great deal of sensitivity is required
In earlier times, skiers first had to painstakingly groom their slopes in the morning before the fresh snow compacted into a firm slope. Until the 1950s, this was sometimes done by climbing uphill. Children often took on this task. They were then allowed to ski as a reward for the so-called "trampling". With the advent of the first ski lifts, there was a need for faster, better and more convenient methods of slope grooming.
Initially, home-made rollers made from car tires or other materials were used, which one or two skiers pulled behind them. This was a laborious and dangerous task, as they had to be careful not to be run over by the heavy equipment themselves. Meanwhile, in the Sauerland region, resourceful minds were trying to equip agricultural machinery with rollers. One further development was the use of skimming boards, which the vehicles pulled behind them and pressed the snow down a little.
First motorized snow groomers in the 60s
The era of snow groomers began at the 1960 Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley in the Sierra Nevada, where army tracked vehicles were used for the first time to compact the slopes. In 1962, Prinoth built the first prototype snow groomer for piste preparation, the P 60. The Ratrac S was the first mass-produced snow groomer to hit the slopes in 1963. A year later, Prinoth launched its first production model, the P 15.
In 1968, the first snow groomer from Kässbohrer – now the global market leader – followed. The development of snow groomers gathered pace.
First snow groomers in the Sauerland Winter Sports Arena
The first professional snow grooming machines made their debut in the Sauerland Winter Sports Arena in the late 1960s. It is said that in 1968, the Rummel brothers purchased the first snow groomer for the Willingen ski resort. The vehicle, manufactured by Ratrak, was used at Ritzhagen. The Rimberg ski resort near Bad Fredeburg acquired a snow groomer in 1969. According to a newspaper report, the machine was the only mass-produced snow groomer in Germany at the time and boasted an impressive 55 PS.
In the same year, operators at the Winterberg ski lift network acquired a similar vehicle. The lift companies Quick and Wahle jointly purchased a snow groomer from Fendt. The Lely BERO H2 was powered by a 53 PS NSU engine. Instead of the usual ‘tank steering’ system — where one track rotates whilst the other remains stationary — the company had developed a special steering mechanism. To prevent the vehicle from digging into the snow whilst manoeuvring, both tracks remained in motion. The tracks were made of rubber.
Series production of the tracked vehicles began towards the end of 1968/1969. The name BERO is derived from the English words ‘belt’ and ‘roller’, which refer to a ‘conveyor belt’ and allude to the tracks.
The snow groomers of that era were only suitable for compacting snow.
The first vehicles did not yet have a plough for pushing snow. There were not yet the vast quantities of snow that we see today. The slopes were often covered only by a fairly thin layer of natural snow and were in use for far fewer days than they are today. On days when the slopes were heavily used and many skiers carried a lot of snow downhill as they skied, there were hardly any ways to repair thin patches.
Operators often had to shovel the snow by hand to the areas where it was needed. In the early 1970s, vehicles from manufacturers such as Prinoth, Hämmerle and Ratrac were also in use in Winterberg.
In the 1970s, manufacturers introduced piste rollers with front-mounted snow ploughs onto the market. Trailing rollers and smoothing boards improved the compaction of the snow. Cable winches made work on particularly steep sections easier. In the mid-1970s, manufacturers produced the first snow blowers as rear-mounted attachments. The 12-way ploughs commonly used today are a product of the 1980s.
Powerful high-tech equipment
Nowadays, state-of-the-art, high-performance snow groomers usually groom the ski slopes in the evening and at night. If it snows during the night, the slopes are groomed again in the early hours of the morning. Winch rollers are used to ensure that even steep slopes can be groomed to the highest standard. Smaller cross-country ski trail groomers are available for lift tracks and tow paths.
The large snow groomers have up to 520 PS. In a single pass, the front blade smooths out any unevenness. The trailing system then mills, smooths and recompacts the surface of the slopes.
Nowadays, snow groomers are not only used for grooming the slopes. They also collect and transmit data for analysis. Using various systems, such as GPS or laser, new snow groomers are able to provide data that can be used to determine exactly how much snow lies beneath and in front of the vehicle – accurate to the nearest centimetre. By determining the existing snow depth, snowmaking becomes more targeted and efficient.
Operators can see exactly where in the resort the snow guns should be directed and where the groomers need to push the snow. This results in savings of around 10 per cent in the energy used for snowmaking. Thanks to the increasing digitalisation of processes, the entire snow and fleet management system can be controlled on the basis of centralised data collection and analysis.
