Ski Resort Automation: Snow Guns, Groomers, ABB

A ski run in late November is usually built by machines working at night: fan guns turn water into snow in a few cold hours, and groomers push it into a smooth, packed surface before the lifts open. Ski resort automation is now taking over more of that night shift, with snow guns that switch themselves on from a tablet and groomers that set their own tools. This post goes from the hand packed slopes of the 1940s to the first snowcats and snow cannons, looks at an Idaho resort's new automated snowmaking this autumn, and asks where ABB robots fit around the slopes.

A PistenBully 600 Polar groomer at Les Diablerets, Switzerland, 2020. Photo: Axel Tschentscher / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

From stamped slopes to the first snowcats and snow cannons

Before grooming machines, a ski slope was whatever the weather left. A February 1940 photo of the practice slope on the Anvil Lake ski trail in Wisconsin shows fresh snow crossed by ski and boot tracks, with no machine in sight. In the 1950s some areas used heavy rollers steered by one skier in front, or two skiers front and back, to firm up the surface. It was slow work, and the snow had to fall before any of it could start.

The practice slope on the Anvil Lake ski trail in Wisconsin, February 1940, crossed by ski and boot tracks. Photo: National Archives via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Artificial snow is older than the grooming machine. Americans Art Hunt, Dave Richey and Wayne Pierce invented the snow cannon in 1950, and in 1952 Grossinger's Catskill Resort Hotel in New York became the first place in the world to use artificial snow. Tracked machines came from another direction. Armand Bombardier in Canada built a motor sledge in 1922 and sold his SnowCoach from 1935, but those vehicles were used to carry people and freight and were not used to prepare pistes. Snowmaking only spread widely in the early 1970s.

The Pfänder ski area above Lochau in Vorarlberg, Austria, 1940. Photo: Risch-Lau Collection, Vorarlberger Landesbibliothek via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Purpose built groomers arrived in the 1960s. Prinoth's first prototype, the P 60, ran in 1962, and its first production groomer followed two years later. Kässbohrer built its first PistenBully in 1968 and delivered it in December 1969, and in 1983 the company introduced the first winch for grooming steep slopes. A groomer was at work during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Every groomer had a driver in the cab, and snow guns were set up and adjusted by crews on the hill.

A snow groomer at work during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Photo: Dr. John Kelley, NOAA via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Automated snow guns and smarter groomers this season

Much of that hill work is still manual. At Thunder Ridge Ski Area in New York, a snowmaker was photographed in 2023 checking the air pressure and water mix on a gun by hand at sunset. Tamarack Resort in Idaho described the old routine in September 2026: a four person crew could need up to ninety minutes to haul portable fan guns through the dark, connect electrical pedestals and water hoses and test nozzle heaters, by which time a short cold window could already be closing.

A snowmaker checks the air and water mix on a snow gun at Thunder Ridge Ski Area, New York, 2023. Photo: Coldstreamer20 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Tamarack's answer, announced on 22 September 2026, is a seven figure upgrade built on TechnoAlpin TT10 tower fan guns and TR10 mobile units. The towers stay connected to pressurized water and power, start and stop automatically, and can be switched on across a trail from a tablet within about ninety seconds of the weather stations confirming conditions. Coverage grows to more than 300 acres, over 20 percent of the skiable terrain, and the resort says the TT10 uses about 30 percent less energy per cubic yard of snow. Permanent automated lines go down Serenity, the main top to bottom run, and the beginner corridor Waltz. Resort president Scott Turlington put it simply: Tamarack always had the water and the cold nights, but not the ability to use them everywhere it needed.

A DemacLenko snow fan gun on Fawn Meadow at Thunder Ridge Ski Area. Photo: Coldstreamer20 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Modern snow guns are fully computerized and can run on their own or from a central control room, like the illuminated cannon working at night in Sölden, Austria. Groomers are heading the same way. A Prinoth patent application filed in 2020 describes a groomer that sets its own tools, at least partly on its own, to get the surface it needs. Prinoth has also tested a battery electric Husky E-Motion at Flumserberg in Switzerland since December 2023, charged in about two hours from a mobile station supplied by Designwerk.

An illuminated snow cannon making snow at night in Sölden, Tyrol, 2024. Photo: Matti Blume / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

What comes next for robots around the ski slopes

A fully driverless groomer working among skiers is still some way off, and nothing we found shows one in regular service. Groomers mostly run at night after the lifts close, and winch cables on steep slopes are a real danger to anyone on the piste, so a robot groomer would need very reliable detection of people. The likely first step is more automation inside the cab: tool settings, snow depth and routes handled by software while a driver supervises.

An ABB robot works on a long wooden part clamped in a fixture, with dust hoses overhead. Photo: ABB

ABB does not make snow guns or groomers. Its robots fit better in the factories behind a ski holiday. At most ski factories, workers still run nearly finished skis through sanding and polishing grinders by hand, and the Quebec ski maker Utopie has handed that step to a four armed robot. ABB already sells sanding cells built on its own arms, such as the OmniVance finishing cell where a GoFa cobot sands curved wooden panels, and an ABB arm could work on wooden ski cores in the same way. Like the ABB arms used in woodworking, such a cell is usually planned in RobotStudio.

A GoFa cobot sands a curved wooden panel with a Mirka sander inside ABB's OmniVance finishing cell. Photo: ABB

Closer to the snow, an ABB IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection is built to cope with water and dust, which suits wet jobs like servicing snow gun parts in a workshop. That remains a possibility; no resort we found uses one. For skiers at home, the change will show up as earlier openings and steadier conditions. The open problems are cost, since automated snowmaking takes seven figure budgets, water and energy use, and the skills needed to run software driven mountains.

An ABB IRB 1300 with Foundry Plus 2 protection, built to handle water and dust. Photo: ABB

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