Otto Wallingford

Creator of Modern Grooming

Otto Wallingford is best known for his invention of the "Powdermaker," the device that revolutionized the way ski slopes were groomed, but his ideas began well before that to help ski areas in many unseen ways.

In January of 1962, he fired up Maine's first snowmaking system, one built from his own design. That system made more ice than snow, but he con¬tinued to work at it and in 1963/64 invented the first air dryer for snowmak¬ing systems. This removed water droplets from the snowmaking lines improving the quality of the snow. As he designed and manufactured his own snow guns, he developed the pole gun, elevating guns 20 feet in the air by mounting them on light poles and trees. This was 30 years before today's tower guns became the rage.

Next came the big fan gun, three snow guns mounted on a giant fan which could be hauled across the base area covering it in a fraction of the time required with smaller guns. He followed this idea with the "Otto-matic", again multiple guns on a giant fan, but with an automatic oscillator allowing open slopes to be covered by moving the gun only twice.

His snowmaking now productive, Otto's attention turned to improving conditions. He wanted a way to pulver¬ize the hard pack to a softer more ski¬able surface. In 1968 he called on his back ground as an agricultural engineer trying such implements as a tine harrow, but nothing did the job.

He finally came up with the idea of a giant roller of spandex steel (filled with openings similar to a chain link fence only much stronger and sharper metal) and hauled it up the slopes. At first it didn't do much, then the inventor came up with the idea of dragging it at an oblique angle and the "Powdermaker" was born. The need for such a device was proved when he built 25 that year on speculation and all 25 were sold by Christmas to eager ski area operators.

The invention of the "Pow¬dermaker" led to the formation of Valley Engineering in 1969 and soon his groom¬ing equipment was patented and being sold to ski areas around the world. The U-blade used to bull doze moguls into a flat surface to be tilled into powder was developed by Wallingford, as were the hydraulic systems that power the many tools used by today's groomers.

Today virtually every skier in the World enjoys the fruits of Otto Wallingford's creative mind. They may not know it but the smooth corduroy like surfaces they take for granted, came out of one man's efforts to create a fine skiing -product at his laboratory, a 240 foot hill called Lost Valley.