Why I love my job
Ray Gardner, Attractions supervisor, Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain
Friday, January 16, 2009
What I do: It may snow just once or twice each winter in Atlanta, but Ray Gardner makes sure there’s enough for the tubing hill at Stone Mountain’s newest attraction, Snow Mountain, every weekend in January and February.
“People who come to a ski area have seen snow before,” he said. “Here, it’s a new experience.”
Karl W. Ritzler / AJC Special
Ray Gardner makes sure there’s plenty of fresh powder for folks who want to tube down Snow Mountain at Stone Mountain.
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As attractions supervisor, Gardner, 36, is probably the only person in Georgia whose job description includes grooming a snowy slope for an avalanche of people riding tubes down a hill at the foot of a big rock.
Snow production and grooming is an all-day, all-week exercise to keep ahead of the weather and warmth.
“We need the right temperatures and weather,” he said. The temps can get into the 70s, and there can’t be any rain for Gardner and his staff to blow snow.
On a cool and clear day last week, perfect weather for making your own snow, the white stuff arced out of a plastic tube and onto a growing pile.
Gardner, a veteran of managing a ski resort in Oregon, said that there, “Snow falls out of the sky. We made snow only when we had to.”
They have to make snow every day at Stone Mountain using a closed system to save water. The lake at the park supplies water to a permanently installed snow-making machine just out of sight in the trees near Snow Mountain. There, the filtered water is frozen and sprayed onto the slope, which starts with a ramp just outside Memorial Hall and extends down the lawn toward the mountain. Meltwater flows back into the lake.
Gardner also is the driver of the snowcat, a tracked vehicle that can crawl over the snow to level or build mounds and carve the lanes for the tubes.
“We use the snowcat to push and place snow,” he said. “It compacts the surface” before the snow machines add a new, softer layer each day.
Often he’s grooming the hill with the snowcat at night, when it’s coldest and there’s less danger of turning the hill to slush. He said that at the ski resort where he used to work, he found it a relaxing time to be by himself, turn on the radio in the cat and groom the slope.
When he’s not making it snow at Stone Mountain, Gardner supervises the Summit Skyride and “park imaging,” making sure the grounds look top-notch.
What got me interested in this: “I grew up in the mountains, skiing in Oregon,” Gardner said. “I’m a total ski nut. There’s snow on the ground from October to June” where he grew up.
“Skiing is a lifestyle. It sucks a lot of people in for life,” he said.
Gardner turned his passion into a profession by getting a degree in ski area management and going to work near his home at Willamette Pass Resort.
“It’s a small field,” he said. “There are only 500 ski areas in the country.”
Best part of my job: “I like the challenge of doing a snow feature in Georgia,” he said. “The ski business is always based on the weather. I like the variety and challenge.”
Most challenging part: “Planning, scheduling and being open when the biggest variable is the one you can’t control — the weather,” Gardner said.
What people don’t know about my job: “The physical demands,” he said. “We shovel a lot of snow. A lot of the staff has never shoveled snow before.”
What keeps me going: “I think it’s fun,” he said. “I’m not a 9-to-5 office kind of guy. I get to be outside, play in the snow and live in Atlanta. Who’d a thought?”
Preparation needed for this job: “You have to be able to work in the weather,” Gardner said. While winters aren’t so bad in Atlanta, ski resorts are usually in high-altitude, cold climates.
The job also involves working at night and in the cold mornings. Snow Mountain isn’t open during the week, so the snow making and grooming can continue uninterrupted. But at a ski resort, the grooming has to be done at night before the skiers hit the slopes the next day.
- By Karl W. Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@yahoo.com.
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