Sunday, February 14, 2010

Liberty Snowcat Helps BWI Airport with Special Snow Removal {Liberty Mountain Resort, Carroll Valley, PA}

This past week we found out that our snowcats (better known as "groomers") can do more than just make the snow look pretty at Liberty Mountain. They can also help with special snow removal activities at airports...and of course, make their snow look pretty, too.

On Thursday, February 11th, Liberty received an unusual yet exciting request from BWI Airport in Baltimore, MD. The airport received a record 79.9 inches of snow in the back-to-back snow storms of early February and quickly needed assistance in clearing the snow from important airfield navigational equipment. So they asked Liberty, referring to us as "snow experts", if they could use one of our snowcats to help with their snow recovery efforts. Excited, thrilled and intrigued Liberty quickly agreed and hauled the PistenBully 600 groomer to the airport on Thursday evening.

Scott Miller, Vehicle Maintenance Supervisor, and Corey Hesketh, Vehicle Maintenance staff member, accompanied the groomer to the airport and prepared it for action under the lights of the runways. Here are some pictures taken by airport staff during the arrival and assembly of the PistenBully 600...


On Friday, February 12th around 8am, Gene Weikert, Liberty Groomer, hopped in the PistenBully 600 and began working on the near 10 acres of land that needed clearing. They cleared and groomed the snow from near the glideslope antenna, a critical component of Instrument Landing System that assists planes approaching and landing runways. Because of the heavy snow, accuracy was affected and planes were unable to land.



After a full day of clearing and grooming snow, the Liberty grooming staff received a thumbs up from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the important navigation technology was back online at the airport.
Thank you BWI Airport for this neat opportunity and THANK YOU Scott, Corey and Jean for all your hard work!

Monday, February 8, 2010

February SNOW STORM 2010 {Liberty Mountain Resort, Carroll Valley, PA}

WOW! What a winter for snow! First we received nearly two feet of snow in mid-December, then we received inches here and there throughout January and early February, and now we've got nearly two feet of snow again! Mother Nature certainly did bless us this past weekend with TONS of beautiful snow - we recieved 22.5 inches to be exact! How many more "snow storms" do you think we'll get this winter???

Here are some pictures from Saturday, February 6th...



And here are some of the pictures from February 7th after the snow storm...so beautiful!!!




If you haven't had the opportunity to come up and enjoy the fresh, snowy conditions, no worries! Our mountain is covered with lots of beautiful snow and with another "snow storm" in the forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday, we should have even more beautiful snow on the mountain for you to enjoy! Midweek is going to be awesome at Liberty....TAKE A SNOW DAY!