Wrightwood, CA – Mountain High Resort in Wrightwood is ready for another ski and ride season with more than $1 million in improvements, includinga new Rossignol Experience Center, an expanded Children’s Sports Center, new snow cats and terrain features, and more than $300,000 in snowmaking improvements.

Mountain High has been Southern California’s first resort to open for the past 16 years and this winter they are able to make snow even faster with the addition of six new Super PoleCat fan guns from SMI and one swing-arm fan gun from Technoalpine.  The SMI Super PoleCat snowmakers are big-throw, simple nozzle fan guns.  The extended reach of the Technoalpine swing-arm snowmaker means the Mountain High can place the snow exactly where they want it, even in windy conditions.

Gone are the days of huge staff hiking the resort adjusting snow guns with a wrench and prayer.  These guns are fully automatic so they adjust themselves based on the conditions.  They can be dialed down to make heavier base snow or dialed up to create light surface snow.  Some guns can even be activated by remote control.

Mountain High operates one of the largest snowmaking systems in the country and is continually striving to increase its coverage and efficiency while reducing overall fuel consumption.  This is no small task, so for the better part of 10 years, Mountain High has been adding electric fan guns, installing new compressors, and retrofitting its exiting hydrants to perform at peak capacity.  The current system is now 30% more efficient that it was a decade ago ,allowing Mountain High to make more snow than ever using fewer resources.  It is also being run by a new captain, Eric Loveng, formerly the Assistant Snowmaking Manager, who carries with him 20 years of snowmaking experience spread between Mountain High and Snow Valley, Calif.