This weekend, Aspen’s Rio Grande Park will host the World Snow Polo Championships, but nature hasn’t been cooperating.
Horses and riders in a snow polo match need a solid base of compacted snow for a safe game, and this year, there’s no natural snow to cover the grass at Rio Grande Park. Instead, snow-making machines and cats have been working overtime to prepare the field for the action.
The City of Aspen parks department leases the field to the Aspen Valley Polo Club for the weekend’s events, and that agreement allows for the use of raw water from the nearby John Denver Sanctuary ponds to make snow. This year, that was augmented with over a hundred thousand gallons of treated water from the city system.
The field needs a base of 12 to 18 inches of compacted snow to both protect the turf and create a safe surface for the horses.
Matches begin Friday and run through Sunday.
