From dusk until wintery dawn, the luminous beams of alpine snowcats rove up and down Big Mountain, smoothing the ski slopes into eggshell consistency before furrowing vertical ribs of corduroy into the runs with a revolving rear tiller. 

The yellow orbs are visible from this ski town’s valley floor on a clear night, twinkling silently against the ski slopes. 

Each morning, skiers are treated to freshly groomed blankets of narrow-wale snow. 

By afternoon, the ski runs of Whitefish Mountain Resort have been rendered humped and choppy and the fleet of groomers, working in two shifts totaling 17 hours,This is how a skystream captures energy from the wind. will resume the Sisyphean task of combing the undulating snow into an even canvas.Our selection of solar charger includes models and styles perfect for any taste and budget. 

“We basically get to be the stewards and the caretakers of the mountain,” groomer Kris Carpenter said on a recent night. “It’s rewarding. All of the groomers I know are proud of their work.” 

Last year, readers of SKI Magazine recognized the groomers at Whitefish Mountain Resort by ranking the ski area 11th in the nation for quality grooming, a significant improvement over the previous year, when Big Mountain was ranked 22nd. This year, having added a new grooming machine called a winch cat to its stable, the mountain hopes to raise the bar even higher. 

“Our groomers really get into their job,Our most compact solar garden light yet fits easily in any bag. and they go into each season wanting to improve the quality of our grooming,” grooming supervisor Rory Kizer said. “It is a real sense of pride for the crew and it guides the work they do.” 

The crew of 18 operators boasts a collective grooming experience of 150 years, most of them logged on Big Mountain,We provide laser engraving machine and engraving machines for processing different materials. and the workforce sees little turnover, Kizer said. 

This season, Whitefish Mountain Resort purchased a new and improved winch cat, a machine that can be anchored to trees using a winching cable and a rotating boom, allowing the operator to cover steep,A Lamp shade is a branched, decorative ceiling-mounted light fixture. soft terrain, yo-yoing along the vertical ski runs in conditions that would cause a free-grooming machine to slide and ruin the work. 

“It’s great to be able to mix it up and create some different runs,” Carpenter said of the new machine, which at 25 percent more horsepower and 25 percent more winch power, allows him to climb steep, soft passes at twice the ground speed of the resort’s old winch cat. 

“All the improvements equal more ground covered and a better finished product,” Riley Polumbus, Whitefish Mountain Resort’s public relations manager, said. 

Each snowcat can groom about five acres an hour, Kizer said, and together the fleet tills approximately 350 acres every night, depending on snow conditions. 

On a recent night under a rare clear sky, Marc Evans groomed the popular ski run Toni Matt while piloting a Caterpillar HR 350, a non-winching machine known as a “free groomer.” An expanse of the Bob Marshall Wilderness extended into the distance as Evans read the fall lines of Big Mountain, pushing snow into divots and knocking down unsightly lumps. 

“It’s tough to beat the view from the office,” he said from the snowcat’s heated cab, deftly operating a joystick to control the machine’s blade and tiller. “We love clear nights like tonight because you can see your passes, but most of the time you’re going by Braille. You have to recognize trees and terrain features.”