It’s time to check on the snow pile. In mid-August, Marko Mustonen, commercial director of Levi ski resort in northern Finland, logs on to a live webcam view of an elongated heap of snow snaking down a hillside. He shares his screen with me on Zoom so that I too may observe the precious hoard. The snow is neatly covered by thick, white, insulating blankets—and surrounded by grassy green terrain.
“It’s looking very good,” Mustonen remarks. “This is the biggest amount of snow we have ever stored. I think we are reaching the optimum.”
Four separate stockpiles like this one at Levi amount to a total of 260,000 cubic meters of