By GLYNIS HART
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CLAREMONT – The snow gun has been making snow for four days at Arrowhead, creating a massive pile which Spencer Allen, driving the groomer, will begin spreading up the slope this week.
“Man-made snow is very dense,” said Chuck Allen. He and Spencer are the main staff at Arrowhead, a city-owned community recreation facility that offers skiing, tubing and snowboarding at the mountain behind the middle school.
“It makes a good base,” said Chuck Allen. “It doesn’t melt very fast in the sun. We try to get down a foot … natural snow on top is perfect. Hope for snowstorms.”
Spencer was looking for the weather to stay cold, so as they move the snow gun up the slopes they’ll be able to blanket the trails with a nice base of white stuff. There’s no rain in the forecast, but plenty of cold will preserve the made snow, so all looks good for the center to open next Saturday, Dec. 15.
A dedicated corps of about 12 volunteers look after the mountain throughout the year, and are largely responsible for a slew of updates and renovations. The Arrowhead Recreation Club raises funds and does trail work, etc., but Arrowhead actually belongs to the City of Claremont.
The city’s current Arrowhead budget line item of $18,000 covers normal building maintenance, utilities and some seasonal grounds work, as Arrowhead is a city park. According to Chuck Allen, “All normal operational costs, insurance ($15,500 a year), many infrastructure improvements, regulatory and inspection fees, a lot of minor maintenance items, like building the pop station bag holder and keeping it stocked and other major and minor upgrades are done by the Arrowhead Recreation Club, not the city. The club also purchased a $100,000 groomer a few years back, for which the loan is still being paid off.”
Over the last 16 years — ARC was formed in 2002 — the club has completed capital improvements of more than $500,000 in value: basement renovations, a facility wide electrical upgrade, adding a full commercial kitchen, replacing the parking lot deck, doing drainage work, constructing new buildings, doing some interior improvements, building a tubing area, doing slope and trail maintenance, replacing the slope side deck with a patio, adding lift coverings and other infrastructure work.
“Our mission is to provide low-cost recreation for the area,” said Chuck. “A lot of people would never be able to afford it otherwise. Even tubing is $22 an hour in other places.”
Volunteers earn free passes, which some use themselves and some pass on to their children. In the winter, the volunteer corps swells to 40 or 50 people who help out with concessions, trail grooming, maintenance, teaching, and so forth.
“They enjoy supporting the operation,” said Spencer.
Have any Olympians gotten their start on Claremont’s snow hill?
“Not really,” said the Allens. Olympian Marilyn Cochran Brown came by and gave a talk at Arrowhead a few years back, Chuck remembered.
The Cochrans are famous in ski lore, with several Olympians and a long history of being in the medals that now includes several generations. The family hails from Richmond, Vermont, where they operate a small ski center much like this one. However, Barbara Cochran, who brought home the gold for the giant slalom in 1972, was born in Claremont.
That makes it a good place to start.
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