'My job is simple; to push the snow back up the mountain...'

 

Adapted from the article written by Peter Sonnekus-Williams for GstaadLife print 27.02.09

Do you sometimes look out of your window at night and wonder what those lights on the mountains are? Well, they are the busy bees from Bergbahnen Destination Gstaad AG (BDG) with their 23 piste grooming machines preparing the slopes every evening and early morning. At almost half a million francs a pop and gas mileage that would make even a Range Rover driver gulp (30 liters per hour), these machines don't come cheap. But according to Armon Cantieni, the director of BDG, they are a much-needed part of BDG's investment in our ski network. The ski autobahns of our winters are actually prepared right over the cow pastures of our summers, with BDG under contract with over 350 farmers for the use their land for prepared ski runs. Grooming the sometimes very steep hills -- in the dark -- is not a task for the faint-hearted and takes a good deal of experience. But the bulky tank-like piste-bashers are surprisingly agile and are equipped with extraordinarily powerful lights to work in the dark and mist -- which is why you can see them from all over. The nightmare hill for the piste groomers?

No it's not the Tiger Run, but actually the Rinderberg Ronda, which apparently is steeper and even trickier to maneuvre on than the black section of the Wasserngrat. What might surprise you is that the grooming machines sometimes anchor themselves to points on the mountain or even to one another using high tension cables in order to get the necessary leverage on the tricky sections (read, to stop them simply sliding off the mountain). This cable can span out up to a hundred meters and are why it is particularly dangerous to ski after 17h when the beasts lumber out of their stables.

There is probably little thought given to the men who work through the night just to make sure we have a perfect ski day. But then there is a certain humility amongst the ratrack operators themselves. As one such operator, Lukas Oehrli, commented to the GstaadLife reporter: "My job is simple: to push the snow back up the mountain which skiers and boarders have spent their day pushing down the mountain."

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[Rick]

Hi!
Great piece of information!
I am an enthousiast and used to work a lot with shovels to push sand in various areas, small street construction to garden construction etc. Also used to drive tractors and work the farm land.
However I am an true alpine enthousiast. Coming from Holland you understand that is sort of a problem having no mountains.
Now really trying to find out some sort of work in a ski area for the wintertime. Now taking off on a bully is not exactly easy and it is obvious one has to climb the ladder for achieve that. But I think there must be several other jobs around it to start with.
Maybe you could give me some tips to get in touch with someone who could help me find some opening?
Thanks and best regards,
Rick