Summer Update Series Pt.2

Welcome to our summer update series! As our year-round employees know, the fun never stops at Shawnee Mountain. Our winter season typically runs from late November through late March, and summer prep starts immediately following our closing day. This week we met with Zach, our Mountain Operations Manager, to touch on what he and his crew are doing during the off-season to prepare for next winter.

A little bit about Zach:

My time at Shawnee Mountain began before I was born. Both of my parents were employees of the ski area, and they lived on property. My mother began as a bartender in what was then EZ Bumpps and continued to work there for 31 years. My father began in the lift department and ended 26 years later in the role I now occupy, Mountain Manager. My sister and I were born into the Shawnee family and would go on to work along side my parents for several years.

I began my career at 14 years old as a Ski Check and Repair Shop technician, where I worked seasonally for many years. I then pursued my love for skiing and the industry by moving to Lake Tahoe, California. I held a similar position at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. After returning to Shawnee, I moved into terrain park maintenance during the Bushkill Terrain Park era.

Life took me in a different direction for several years where I worked in different trades in the area. My now wife and I remained a part of the Shawnee family by becoming volunteer Ski Patrollers. We are still active as patrollers and can often be found in Patrol Base assisting when needed.

In 2022 I graciously accepted an offer to join the Shawnee family once again. This time in a position once held by my father, Mountain Manager. Having grown up with many of the people that I now have the pleasure of working along side made for a welcome return to Shawnee. My wife Danielle and I are now raising our children, Sawyer and Mabel, in the same wonderful place that I spent my childhood. They are both gaining a love for skiing like we have.

In total I have been involved in the operation of Shawnee now for 23 years. 37 years if counted from the time I was born! I look forward to many more years, this is my home and my family. The people I am surrounded by everyday make working here such a pleasure.

Summer Projects Around The Mountain

“Hi I’m Zach. I’m the mountain manager here at Shawnee Mountain ski area, and it is summer here. We do not get a break at Shawnee. We jump right into our summer service season and we have to immediately begin preparing for next year.

The way we do that is we break down all of our snowmaking equipment first, get everything put away and stored so it’s good for next year. We have an entire team dedicated to just maintaining the equipment that we need to maintain the mountain. In the winter is the snow cats, which is a favorite of everybody to see, those come apart and get their preventative maintenance done. Once they’re out the door into storage we bring in our mowers, and our dozers and backhoes and others, and excavators that we use to make these projects happen. Those all need service and attention every year so we have a whole team that does that.”

“As we talk about ski lifts being serviced, we are doing a big painting and refurbishing projects on one of our older lifts, D and E lift, that’s the lookout and Tecumseh lift. That will have a fresh new look for the 24/25 season so look for that.”

“Otherwise we are doing a big pipeline replacement project to upgrade our snowmaking even more. This is a theme every year here at Shawnee, we try to invest in the infrastructure so we can continue being one of the biggest snowmaking mountains in the east and that’s what we’re working on. We’re doing the Lower Bushkill trail this year. We’ll have new pipeline and new snow guns to help us with our efficiency and snowmaking.

As you can see behind me the grass grows here at Shawnee seemingly more than anywhere else in the world. We need to keep the grass nice and short so when we are ready to make snow it is a nice surface for that. It requires quite the crew to maintain that, mowing and weed whacking, and keeping everything neat.

Along with maintaining the grounds out here we do have several buildings we have to maintain. Obviously the lodge is huge as everybody knows, it’s a wooden sided building so we’re constantly painting and doing repairs there. Along with all of the infrastructure involved in those buildings, maintaining it, we also maintain seven houses for employee housing and four other units that are employee housing so we are constantly working on those. That alone takes a whole crew.

And painting, and more painting. Constantly painting.”

Written on: June 11, 2024  |  Written by: Michaela K., Marketing Asst.