- Whoo, hi!
[excited squeals]
[happy shrieks]
- Chad, go turn power on.
[motor sound]
There was a ring around the moon earlier tonight.
I think that means it's gonna snow.
So, a lot of snow was made last night.
We made piles anywhere from about 7 to 15 feet.
If we have to move that gun, we need to pull that nozzle.
My role is I oversee all of it.
I average probably about 17 to 18 hours a day.
It's got a bad nozzle.
It's typical of almost every time snow making.
Something goes down.
Something that doesn't go the way it's supposed to.
*
The guns freeze up really quickly with the water.
The colder the temperatures get,
the faster the problems can happen.
Through the hose!
I managed to take a good shower.
When the hose blew off, it blew off right in my face.
I'm wet all the way through.
My gloves are drenched inside.
About an hour later, I got wet from another gun.
One of the valves got stuck open
and it ended up blowing water all over me, as well.
It's part of the game.
It's part of the job and, yes, it's cold.
[engine thrumming]
We go through a lot of people.
Most people come out.
They go, "Oh, I wanna make snow," and they get into it
and they realize they just can't handle it.
Every single season,
we'll go through five or six people
until we find a good crew.
- We started the year 1975, 46 years and three owners.
[laughs]
I like driving equipment.
I never get sick of driving equipment.
When they make snow, I gotta push it around.
I think the tubing hill at Sunburst is unique
because of the way we make our lanes.
[engine humming]
- To make all the lanes and tubing from scratch,
the first time you make 'em is between 10 and 12 hours.
The hardest part is to drive straight
for 900 feet when you're going so slow.
It's quite hard.
When both hills are open, there's fifty lanes.
[screeching]
When tubing was first opened,
we had the Washington County Sheriff's Department
sat in the parking lot with their radar gun.
[children screaming]
And they clocked them at thirty miles an hour.
[happy screams]
Yeah, that's fast.
- I love it.
Tubing is probably my favorite spot to be
because everybody's having a great time.
- Like when you stay till 4 o'clock in the morning
and then you come the next afternoon
and there's lots and lots of people here,
then I know that it was worth my time.
[excited screech]
- People come out and enjoy it.
It's wintertime. Enjoy it!
- Oh, my god.
That was so fun!