Among all the puzzle pieces that make skiing happen, one of them has always held a special place in my heart.

My first day skiing was, quite literally, life changing. It was the day I rode my first lift, made my first turns, and saw my first snowmaker. Ask anyone close to me and they’ll tell you that snowmaking has captivated me ever since.

I’d skip classes to go watch local resort make snow. Summer hikes were less about exploring grassy ski hills and more about studying the snowguns lining the trails. I’d even tinker with my own homemade guns to turn our family’s yard white on Christmas mornings (and most any other cold morning) in high school.

Remember This?
A while back I plotted resort email open rates for every day of the year. Some of you probably remember it:

What fascinated me then, and still does today, are the two spikes during the last week of September and right in the middle of November. These spikes are driven by a few things: first snowfalls, the race to open, opening date announcements, the end of summer heat and, yes, snowmaking.

Man + Nature = Beauty
Early morning light, water droplets floating in the air, and fall leaves combine the make snowmaking, quite possibly, the easiest thing to take pictures of…ever.

The colors created almost perfectly match the summer-ending stoke felt in the guts of skiers all of the norther hemisphere.

Here are a few of my favorites:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/chdiegelphoto/8121326062/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/21194274@N05/2061632489/

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150474490703115

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aspensnowmass/8180377750/

http://www.sundayriver.com/Corporate/Media/ImageLibrary/index.html

See what I mean? Magical.

Ride the Wave
This fall, unless you are one of the chosen few who rely on heaven alone, your resort will crank up the snowguns. The first night, they may start at 2am. Yet, barring some fluke in temperatures that night, they won’t stop until after the sun has come up.

If I were you, I’d hit line up the camera gear and capture/share golden hour like a hipster at an vegan restaurant. Then, I’d get those amazing photos out to every media and social outlet for as far as the eye can see.

The wave of pre-season buzz is coming. If I were you, I’d use snowmaking to ride it as far as you can.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.