Bashas’ making it snow Saturday

Bashas’ is having an outdoor festival 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday offering holiday treats, arts and crafts, more than 50 vendors, a visit from Santa and six tons of snow.

“We’ve done it at a couple of other (Bashas) stores and the kids really love it,” Store Director Dusty Sluder said. “The snow is really cool for the kids, especially since it doesn’t snow out here.”

Gene Oliver, owner of Arizona Iceman, said his snow is made of purified city water.

“People play in it and the kids will eat it. It has to be pure and sanitary,” he said.

Sequoia Pathway Academy hosted a holiday carnival Dec. 1 that also included snow.

“It definitely enhanced our event especially because some kids have never seen it before,” PTO President Sandy Bruce said.

“It was a holiday event and when you think of that you think of snow,” Bruce said. “It was really a treat for the kids and I would recommend snow at any holiday event.”

So how does snow making work in the desert?

“I designed and built my mechanic a machine that is driven by diesel or gas engine which powers a turbo,” Oliver said. “It turns extremely fast and crushes the ice into very fine pieces and then blows it out of a hose wherever a customer wants it.”

“We will literally pick up ice and dump it into the hopper,” Oliver said. Arizona Iceman, a full service ice company that has been in business for 20 years, is the biggest ice company in the Valley.

“There are other companies that manufacture chemicals to look like snow, but we are the largest ice company,” he said.

Although artificial snow is most popular around the holiday months, Oliver said it available all year.

“It is an excellent thing in the summer even though it’s really hot,” Oliver said. “It doesn’t melt as much as people think.”