Gadgetory

as a skier or boarder you wouldn't guess that buried beneath these slopes is a complex web of pipes right where we're standing there's pipes all over all over the mountain all over the mountain holiday like most major ski resorts North Star California in Lake Tahoe can keep trails open even during a drought with sophisticated snowmaking equipment the life of a machine-made snowflake begins where all those pipes originated at the base of the mountain there's these big air compressors and they compress air and that air is transferred up the mountain in these pipelines and there's also water pumps hoses transporting the water and compressed air are hooked up to different types of snow guns here's a stick gun and this is a fan gun it uses a big fan on the back and in front of the gun at the nozzles there's a bunch of water nozzles in the front okay so the fan just forces air out water interjects into the air stream and it just falls to the ground of snow it's equipment like this that's transformed to Sochi a subtropical city same stuff in the Olympics that they use we're using here at North Star and they're using other tricks in Russia they like it a little firmer because it's faster there in the speed so they do two things they water the course at night and let that freeze on top of natural snow or man-made snow and they mate you know if it warms up during the day they may add a little salt to it makes it set up during the day so it's a little bit firmer chilly temperatures definitely help the colder it is the more efficient snow guns become North Star typically fires up 125 guns nightly but they're only turned on when the mercury drops below a certain temperature how much snow can this stick gun generate this is about 14 to 75 gallons per minute and it runs 24 hours a day when it's cold and so it it will cover this area right here in three or four days you could ski this area when you put a snowcat on and groom it out over the past 10 years snowmaking has become highly automated to the point that the snow guns on the mountain can be controlled with an iPhone app you start compressors and you start water pumps and actually you can adjust these guns whether your iPhone which is really pretty cool an antenna enables communication with the guns which have built-in intelligence to it's got a computer on board it monitors the outside temperature relative humidity calculates wet bulb turns the water up makes more snow when it gets cold turns itself down when it warms up and if it really gets warm turns itself off as you might imagine this is an expensive way to keep lifts running it does cost money to run snowmaking because you have the power bill you have all this machinery and labor but it's like an insurance policy if Mother Nature doesn't kick in this winter it's not just California ski resorts that are depending on snow making technology it's also athletes going for the gold in sochi in Lake Tahoe I'm Sumi das Cena for CBS News