PLANNING & DESIGN
How to Reduce a $1.3 Million
Lighting Project to $420,000
A case study: Hogadon Ski Basin
By Philip Gotthelf, Ultratech Lighting
Hogadon Basin in Casper, Wyo., recently built a new
$6 million lodge complete with sports bar, modern
kitchen, expanded dining area and other ameni-ties.
As with many North American snow sports
venues, the problem was that everything shut down at
about 4 p.m., at sun set, limiting the potential for positive
returns. The obvious solution was to install slope lighting
and develop a night skiing and riding program.
Friends of Hogadon is a non-profit organization, cre-ated
in 2014, for the purpose of establishing a new lodge
at the Hogadon Basin. Since then, the organization contin-ues
to assist in the enhancement and further development
of the ski area. Since Hogadon Basin is owned and oper-ated
by the Town of Casper, Friends of Hogadon teamed
up with the town to raise private money and get the
night program funded.
The first step was to price out the lighting project. Since
the town had used a major outdoor lighting company
for other projects such as school fields and public areas,
Friends of Hogadon reached out for a quote which came
back at a whopping $1.3 million; a lofty goal to raise for any
non-profit organization. The project was a long shot until
John Lutz, the project coordinator, decided to reach out to
Ultra-Tech Lighting for an alternative lighting proposal.
Lutz had discovered Snow-Bright™ technology manufac-tured
by Ultra-Tech Lighting was specifically designed for
lighting snow sports venues and came highly recommended
by other ski areas like Steamboat Ski Resort in Colorado and
Snow King Mountain Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo. As it turns
out, Snow-Bright™ fixtures provide more effective light dis-tribution
and efficiency than the LED lamps that had been
proposed. Equally important, Snow-Bright™ fixtures generate
sufficient warmth to shed snow and ice that might accumu-late
on “cold” LEDs; a major consideration.
After explaining budgetary constraints, Ultra-Tech’s man-aging
director, Philip Gotthelf, scheduled a piggy-back site
survey visit to occur while he was visiting Eldora Mountain
Resort in Boulder, Colo., for their lighting survey. During his
trip to Casper to evaluate the Hogadon Basin Night Skiing
& Snowboarding Project in the spring of 2019, Gotthelf, to
his surprise, was given pair of snowshoes to walk the entire
length of the project to see it firsthand.
Snow-Bright™’s versatility reduced projected lighting ex-penses
by an estimated $400,000 compared with the pro-posed
LEDs that need much larger and taller steel poles to
achieve reasonable light dispersion. Another $480,000 was
saved by using TorcSill helical piles, recommended by Got-thelf,
to install as foundations for the night skiing light poles.
snowopsmag.com | SnowOps 29
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