1) Snow cats are your best friends, keep your cutter happy cause they can make your job either very easy or very hard.
2) How often your park gets maintained is solely dependent on how ofter it gets ridden through. Keep your standards high, if you wouldn't hit it, fix it, if you'd be even slightly sketched out hitting it, fix it...if it looks like crap, fix it...that part is actually pretty simple. Just keep taking laps through the park (that's the biggest perk, so there is a payoff to waking up at stupid hours in the morning). I try to have my park fixed at least 2 times per shift (morning shift is before open-2pm, night shift is 2pm-10/close, but it's a small mountain, so like I said, it's very much dependent on the number of people going through the park, and sometimes more maintenance is needed through-out the day).
3) Be prepared, have a headlamp, REALLY warm clothes, REALLY waterproof outerwear...but also shit you don't really care about, it will get ruined. Keep in mind that you'll probably be waking up ridiculously early on a regular basis (I generally get up a little before 4am during the winter to get to work, and I live pretty close to my mountain), so be ready for that, and don't fear coffee, but also drink water often. Also, keep in mind that snowmaking happens over night...you'll probably be digging in the dark, cold and getting covered in snow (I'm in here:
). Finally, have a reliable car that can get to the mountain in the snow...mountains don't close for snowdays and those are the days were you'll have to get the most done.
4) Snow cats work best on ice (remember, they're your best friends), however, a good rake can do wonders, and if that doesn't work, a pickaxe will...but it'll leave a HUGE mess that will need to be fixed, and by hand that will suck...
5) If your supervisior says "dig out that rail before tonight" for the love of God DO IT! Because if you don't it WILL get buried in snow and you will have to find it and dig it out anyways.
6) Be prepared to have kids complain to you...no matter how good you think your doing, you'll eventually miss something and they will complain.
7) Sticky rails are hard to fix/annoying...if you come up with something let me know...my only solution so far is a really expensive silicon lube and it doesn't last as long as I'd like.
8) Sketchy is as sketchy does...don't be scared, but be aware...you'll see...
9) Enjoy it, have fun, it's an awesome job, it's a lot of HARD work, but it's also very rewarding and you'll have direct say in what's going on in your park, which is also nice.
10) Finally...if you can, try and watch the sunrise every morning (assuming you work an early morning shift)...you'll be amazed at some of the sunrises you'll see and they'll make you feel better about waking up so early.
Hope that helps (and doesn't scare you off..seriously, it's not as bad as it sounds, it's a ton of fun). Good luck, have fun!
