RESORT PROFILE
Names like Maddie Bowman, Shaun White and Chloe Kim,
all Pyeongchang gold medalists, echo around the site.
said Travis Benson, Buttermilk’s director
of trails. “And we have great beginner
terrain to learn on as well as our
intermediate to advance terrain....
“I’d say the one thing Buttermilk
typically offers is a pretty big percentage
of groom on the mountain.
I mean, we’ll groom anywhere from
60 on a low-end average night to 80
percent of this mountain, if not approaching
the 90 percent level. And
the quality of grooming is definitely
a point of emphasis for us, due to the
fact that it is more beginner terrain,
and trying to leave the perfect product
that we can, as every groomer in
the world does, there’s no question
about that.”
And when those groomers work,
they work late, of course. There are
two shifts that hit the hill consecutively
once the skiers depart for the day.
“The nature of any time you’re working
with the snowmaking department
or winter trails department, the
lifts open at nine o’clock and run ‘til
4-4:30 when we take back over,” said
Benson. “We run two shifts; we run a
swing shift and a graveyard shift. Even
snowmaking is a two-shift situation.
They’re a little bit longer shifts.”
“For winter trails, it’s a smaller
crew – seven, plus a couple of guys
from parks and pipes that float over
a little bit. And then, snowmaking is a
crew of 18 to 20. Then summer trails is
a crew of anywhere from three to six,
depending on projects going on.” (For
equipment, the Buttermilk crew is
“heavily, heavily Prinorth,” with TechnoAlpin
for the snowmaking side,
says Benson.)
One of the staples of the season is
the aforementioned X-Games in late
January/early February. While a team
comes in from outside to build up the
area, Benson says the groups all work
well together. (Buttermilk was also
the site of the Red Bull Double Pipe
back in 2015.)
“We’ve been doing it so long as
a partnership with not only the XGames,
but ESPN. It’s been a strong
partnership over the years. It pretty
Members of a ski school class try their
hand at Buttermilk
DANIEL BAYER 2012
6 April 2018 | snowopsmag.com