 Poster: A snowHead
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Maybe somewhere like Dartmoor, plenty of space and already about 300 metres high. Roman Abramovich could fund a further 2000 metres and create a snow capped winter playground in the south of England. I doubt if it would make a profit but then again, nor will Chelsea.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I'm no expert on this sort of thing but some people build them out of molehills. 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You mean, like this? Definitely a black run.
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DB is that after they've dug themseleves into a hole?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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i've heard that there is a butter one and a sugar one hidden away somewhere. No sure of the costs of the lift pass but i'm they'd both slide quite well?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Often wondered why they built these. I'm told access to ready supplies of forced labour helps. I think they may have got their long range weather forecast wrong though.
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A verse from the bible.
Matthew 21:21
21 Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig-tree, but also you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done.
(NIV)
I tried this last year, thinking that rather than the sea, Basingstoke would be a good place for the Hauser Kaibling to be sited. Sorry everyone, although I am a man with faith, it was clearly not enough ...
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up4it, if we take an average gradient for the slopes of say 30 degrees your 2000M of extra height would give a mountain with a base approximately 7km across and require 25 cubic km of materials to produce 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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D G Orf, not if it were hollow?
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laundryman, fill it up with hot air? We could shut the Commons down for a day, no great loss, they'd have it blown up in no time.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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laundryman, you do not even want to go down that route, the structure would be the most expensive construction ever produced in the world and I'm not even sure that it coulld actually work, it would probably take all the worlds structual steel production for a year or more to build the skeleton then you still need to cover it about 82 sq km of material needed there
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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.....would it be cheaper to "dig" a 2000m mountain then......excavate and put that on top??
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Me thinks, the idea was 2300m altitude, rather than -1700.
What temperature could we expect a mile down?
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You know it makes sense.
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| MartinH wrote: |
| You mean, like this? Definitely a black run. |
You could presumably ski round it, rather than down it, in which case it could be anything from green (and quite long) to black (and quite short).
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Dan, probably as you could just let it settle under its own weight but maybe you could limit yourself to a 1000 M mountain that would require a lot less material
only be 3,5 km across and require about 3.5 cubic km of material or somewhere between 7 and 12 billion tonnes of material, we could pile up all the UK rubbish each year but that only amounts to arround 28 million tonnes per year so would take at least 500 years to build 
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Poster: A snowHead
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If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet must go to the mountain.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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And there is already some snow on Mount Hebron. See David Goldsmith's topic.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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D G Orf,
What a load of rubbish! I'm sure once you advertise, you would have people from around the world queuing up to dump their waste on your mountain. BTW, has anyone tried skiing with a gas mask or radiation suit on?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Ray Zorro, keep trying....one day it might just happen 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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Two proofs - definately QED
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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I suppose planning permission would get in the way but I've always hoped some entreprenuer would take an existing mountain (even a modest hill would do) and cover it over somehow (snowdome style).
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What I can't understand is why no one has used an existing hill and built up the slope then snowdomed it, theoretically it should be much cheaper than building a snowdome and the only limit on length/height would be the size of the hill 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Talking of waste mountains - the highest point in Hamilton County (Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) is the top (what else) of Mt Rumpke - the rubbish dump!
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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D G Orf, that's what Sheffield Ski Village keep talking about doing...covering over the bit of hill next to the slope and freezing it. Although I guess that the rent charged to the shops underneath the snowdome more than compensate for the original outlay.
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Elizabeth B, as long as the slope is fairly small then I guess so but construction of a high slope would be near impossible, apart from anything else they would probably never get planning permission to build over 15-20M on a natural hill a 50M plus verticle should be possible
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You know it makes sense.
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There must be a disused quarry somewhere that could be utilised and would be well out of everyone's way. The side walls would have to be softened though or else it would put off beginners 
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Paul Roberts, I like the idea of finding uses for disused quarries. I think the proposed snow dome in Suffolk (can't remember its name) is built in a quarry, presumably to lower the profile of a b...y great structure in the middle of the countryside!
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Poster: A snowHead
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D G Orf, we had a link to a new indoor snowdome under construction in new Zealand which was just that - plastered onto an existing slope to reduce construction costs. Relatively low rise structure - basically a tunnel shape. Sorry, can't find the thread......
laundryman, SnOasis into the search engine will find it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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D G Orf, Theres always Balmorel or Windsor plenty of land Im suprised bonny price Charlie hasnt thought of it 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Russell, Lochnagar is on the Balmoral estate, so you could put a cover on that and freeze it.
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I think the breakthrough will come when someone invents a way of significantly raising the freezing point of water or else producing a cheap inert substitute for snow. Almost any slope could then become a ski slope.
The other possibility might be to use redundant underground space such as disused slate caverns.
This wouldn't require building a new structure and would help solve humidty and insulation costs. However go too deep (more than about 500 feet) and earth temperatures start to rise. Also I don't suppose disused salt mines would be much good !
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Peter S wrote: |
| I think the breakthrough will come when someone invents a way of significantly raising the freezing point of water or else producing a cheap inert substitute for snow. |
Adding anything to a liquid depresses its freezing point, so that's out. Most liquids have a higher freezing point under increased pressure, but water's remarkably insensitive in that regard. We'd be screaming for mercy, if not crushed outright, before a significant difference could be made.
The answer is to feed heavy water (deuterium oxide) into snow cannons. It's not radioactive or poisonous, has almost identical properties to regular water (of which it makes up a fraction anyway) and has a freezing point of 3.81C, which would be a significant benefit.
The only drawback is that it takes a colossal amount of energy to concentrate it from naturally occurring water. Therefore, the best site for a plant is, as in Telemark, next to a hydroelectric plant: plenty of raw material, which can also be used to provide power. So that's convenient for ski resorts (if a big no-no for environmentalists).
Come to think of it, perhaps the Nazis at Telemark were doing nothing more sinister than extending the season in Norway. Producing heavy water is certainly a long way from making a nuclear weapon. If true, there would be a straight line from there to Iraqi formula milk factories (but that would be to resurrect another thread... )
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http://www.tallington.com/dry_ski_slope.asp is my local and is built entirely from scratch.
It's on the site of a gravel quarry and the hill is mainly a result of the spoil from the quarrying ops. Over the years it has grown in height, but not recently, as more has been added to the top. If they drain the lake at the bottom of the slope then we'd gain another 50m or so of length by going below ground level.
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FAQ
