Snowmaker Mark Eldring Skips Summers for Colorado Slopes

Snowmaker and groomer Mark Eldring, 32, originally from Mount Maunganui, has experienced one summer in the last nine years opting for winters instead shaping slopes around the world.

Eldring is part of a small crew of New Zealanders and Australians contracted by Colorado’s Loveland Ski Area. The group works nearly nonstop to get the resort open as fast as possible.

Snowmaking allows Eldring to spend almost all his time, all year long, on snow-covered mountains, something that might entice avid skiers and snowboarders.

The job’s physical demands keep him in shape, he said, calling the snowmaking season his 10-week boot camp. “The amount of food we eat is absurd.”

Loveland uses his team in the annual race to be the first Colorado ski area to open, he said, because where they’re from the temperature rarely drops below 30 degrees Celsius. The team knows tricks that produce more and better snow in warm weather.

Working for 10 to 11 months straight helps him justify taking off the entire month of April every year. He usually goes surfing in Costa Rica.

Original article by Alli Langley, Summit Daily News, January 20, 2015.

Photo by Dustin Schaefer/Loveland Ski Area.