MarzNC
Well-known member
- Joined
- Jul 18, 2020
Good interview . . . some excerpts:
Whiteface opens this weekend. We chat with the new operations manager
The first time Nick Zachara made snow was when he was nine. Now, he's the operations manager at Whiteface, which is opening this Saturday.www.northcountrypublicradio.org
"RUSSELL: What will be open for skiers in these early weeks before the base is really covered?
ZACHARA: We're starting off by uploading and downloading skiers on the facelift just to take advantage of our elevation. As temperatures allow, we'll start making snow down to the bottom. We're going to tie in the Bear Den Learning Center right off the bat and send skiers and riders down through that part of the mountain, which will help solidify that connectivity with the Bear Den Learning Center early on in the season, which is really important for us.
Off the top, we'll have Paron’s and the Follies open, which is cool to have two routes off the top for opening day. And we'll be working through the valley there with Lower Northway off the bat and Excelsior, Victoria, and Essex soon after. Then, from the Legacy Lodge down, it'll be Boreen over to Bear Den, and we'll add on Fox and Brookside shortly after that. "
"RUSSELL: And you started as an intern at ORDA and I heard that snow-making dates back to your days in college at St. Lawrence University?
ZACHARA: It did. Yeah, I moved to Whiteface this summer, in July. I previously came from the Olympic Jumping Complex, where I spent a number of years in the ORDA Events Department before that. I spent some time at Gore before that, just as a part-time train park groomer, and I was an intern for a summer, as well, during one of my years at St. Lawrence.
And yes, I did make some snow at St. Lawrence, but it does predate that to my time in my front yard back home at my parents' house. This will be my 20th year having some sort of involvement with snowmaking.
RUSSELL: Wait, what? Go back to that childhood snow making.
ZACHARA: Yeah, when I was 9, my dad and I figured out a little homemaking snow gun off an air compressor in the garden hose and we didn't have a ton of snow in the yard to work with and saw it happening at the ski areas and I wanted to do it myself, too, so I could get some turns in after school. It's turned into a career for me.
RUSSELL: Where was that?
ZACHARA: I grew up in New Jersey, so not a lot of snow, but we'd get some cold every now and then and yeah, I was hooked. We got soaking wet and made a little bit of snow and it's been cool to see a dream and a passion when I was little turn into something that I'm still super passionate about and lucky to get to be paid to do, to play in the snow every day. It's pretty cool."
