not sure how they do it now, but with the past ownership, they used to blow a much higher concentration of water/air to form an icier crust that resisted melting more, then blew snow on top of that... but yeah, its going to take a few weeks before they have enough snow to even let the groomer out. Opening by xmas will be tight...
in other news, I skied at louise this weekend.. it rawked, they had the top of the world chair running. yup