In recent years, the production of artificial snow has become commonplace in the ski industry.

It’s not cheap to cover a hillside in artificial snow, so not every ski resort makes snow, and some resorts aren’t too concerned about the quality of the end-result — but the two Dubuque-area resorts do.

Making snow also is more complicated than it looks, although recent scientific innovations have helped. Many skiers and snowboarders not only expect the snow to look real but also to feel and behave like the real stuff. Machine-made snow continues to rely heavily on chemicals, and some water sources are more conducive to the process than others.

Sundown Mountain Ski Resort west of Dubuque Sundown opened in 1972 and has been making fake snow since, “as all Midwest ski areas have,” said Mark Dietz, manager of Sundown. Sundown now uses a snow-making process called Snomax. The end-result is a “freeze-dried ice protein powder,” Dietz said.

Though unnatural, Snomax does not pose any health risks to skiers or the environment. In fact, the water used to make Snomax comes from the Little Maquoketa River north of Dubuque, which Dietz said is ideal because the river’s water has microscopic silt particles needed to form “snowflakes.”

The popularity of artificial snow has enabled some ski resorts to be open year-round — indoors and out — which again points to the wonderful possibilities.

If all this sounds too good to be true, it is. There is one major obstacle to making as much snow as ski resorts need: The cost. According to Dietz, Snomax alone runs up $30,000 per month in costs from utility bills and labor, and that doesn’t count the purchases of the snow-making machines themselves.