We want to raise £80,000 to purchase new snowmaking equipment, to increase our existing snow production capability by up to 80% more.
Since the Lecht was started in 1977, it has helped to introduce thousands of families and children into snow-sports, and enjoy the winters in the Scottish mountains. It is still a family run snow-sports centre but now very much expanded to cater for over 2,000 customers a day whilst still remaining the family friendly place to come. Many school children are now given the chance to do outdoor sports in the snow and we have some of the best slopes in Scotland to learn snow sports on, in a safe and secure environment.
There have always been good and bad snow seasons, but we would like to be able to rely on having more consistent snow conditions, and we now have an opportunity to be able to upgrade our snow making capabilities with a new project which we would like to introduce for this winter.
The key part of the project is to install 4 new automated, TF10 snow cannons that can make snow at just below 0℃ instead of the normal around -4℃. Back in January 2020 when there was a lack of natural snow, we still had 13 nights at -1℃ but only 1 night of -4℃ Although we have already installed a Snow Factory in 2018, which is able to guarantee to cover the nursery slopes regardless of the weather conditions, we want to be able to cover a lot more of the normal slopes and provide better coverage. Each new snow cannon makes as much snow in one hour as the factory makes in 24 hours, so with the four cannons and the right conditions we can increase our production from 4 cubic meters per hour, to 384 cubic meters per hour – which is huge.
These cannons will predominantly run at night when the centre isn’t being used and we can best use our wind turbine to provide the power to the cannons, turning green energy into white snow.
We have the offer of major support for the £400,000 project and now seek to raise £80,000 for the remaining amount through crowdfunding, and should we be successful, then any amount raised beyond that will also be put to purchasing additional snow making and maintaining equipment to improve the facilities for all to enjoy….
A link to our rewards page for more detailed reward information:
Please note that all rewards must be collected in person, unless agreed otherwise (details to be advised). All rewards for donations made prior to 1st of December will be ready on the 19th of December for collection - any rewards for donations made after this time may require to be collected in the new year.
This project successfully funded on 19th December 2020