By Steve Huffman
Salisbury Post
Earlier this week, when the thermometer dropped into the upper teens, Brian Boothroyd figured the timing was perfect for snow making.
So that’s exactly what he did, creating a picturesque pile of snow in front of his house in the 300 block of Mooresville Road.
“I’m just a big kid at heart,” Boothroyd said. “I love snow.”
Boothroyd, 39, has plenty of experience with the white stuff. He attended Western Carolina University and worked for years as a ski instructor at Cataloochee Ski Area in Maggie Valley.
While employed at the ski resort, he spent some nights talking with the guys who made snow for the slopes.
And so, when Boothroyd and his wife, Sarah, moved to Salisbury recently, he decided to take advantage of the ski-making process he’d learned from the guys at Cataloochee.
The process, he said, is relatively simple, requiring little more than a couple of hose pipes, an air compressor and a nozzle the likes of which is typically used with a pressure washer.
A trickle of water hits the compressed air and is blown into the freezing night. About a foot from the nozzle, the water becomes powdered snow, the type that’s perfect for snow cream.
“On a cold night, I’m just out here helping Mother Nature along,” Boothroyd said.
He said the neighborhood children enjoy the process and have come to see what’s going on. Boothroyd said that on Sunday night, he created one pile of snow that measured 16.5 inches deep.
When the temperature climbed into the upper 30s Monday, about 3 inches of that snow melted.
Alongside the bigger pile he’d blown a section that measured 1.5 inches deep. All that melted Monday afternoon.
Boothroyd said the process he uses to create snow in his front yard is the same as used by snow makers at ski slopes, the only difference being that their work encompasses a far larger parcel of property.
“All I’m doing is making a water mist,” he said. “Nature does the rest.”
Boothroyd’s wife, Sarah, said a good friend of the couple described her husband and his free-spirited nature perfectly.
“My friend said, ‘Sarah, your husband is just cool,’ ” she said.
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Contact Steve Huffman at 704-797-4222 or shuffman@salisburypost.com.