Nordic skiers streamed into Virginia Meissner Sno-park for a nocturnal ski and to take advantage of the late-winter snow. Headlamps would help guide their way.

To the skiers’ surprise, two 12-foot light stations bathed the groomed snow in yellow pools of light near the Meissner Lodge. The illumination, if stretched throughout the trail system, would make night skiing a safer and more welcoming activity — and headlamps an afterthought.

Skier Dana Christiansen noticed the portable structures, which are similar to street lamps. Underneath them stood a group of Oregon State University-Cascades engineering students who explained their project to curious sno-park users.

“Debuting your lights? Cool!” Christiansen said. Senior Derek Hobden, 23, grinned and nodded.

Lighting structures are common at nordic centers across the country and in Europe. Yet there are no such amenities in Central Oregon, despite the area having one of the country’s longest nordic ski seasons.

These OSU-Cascades undergraduates’ project, which culminates their studies in the College of Engineering, asks local nordic skiers to imagine night skiing without needing a headlamp.

Hobden is leading two fellow engineering seniors in designing prototypical light stations, which feature additional ecologically friendly details, such as LED light and motion sensors.

The light station project is one of 10 capstone design projects that OSU-Cascades engineering students are pursuing through a 26-week course that started in the fall. Students of the College of Engineering’s School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering come up with practical solutions to everyday engineering challenges.

Although the prototype lights will not remain at the sno-park, the creation and investment of around $158,000 could lead to having a nighttime nordic ski course at Virginia Meissner.

Night light

The way the light stations work is straightforward. A pole-mounted solar panel converts sunlight into electrical energy, which is funneled to its batteries at 99 percent efficiency, Hobden said. The batteries and power-system components are housed in a waterproof box connected to the steel post next to the solar panel.

That the lights operate with noiseless batteries makes them attractive to outdoor event organizers, the student team said. Also, the size of the solar panel and quantity of light can be tailored to the job at hand.

“(These light stations are) scale-able in a lot of directions,” Hobden said.

Real-world application

The OSU-Cascades engineering students must partner with a local sponsor for their projects. Hobden and his team, which includes seniors Jaydon Mahr and Evan Biskey, connected with Zamp Solar, a Bend-based solar panel company, which has afforded them low-cost panels. This year, XC Oregon, a Bend-based nordic ski nonprofit, contributed $1,500. The team sourced batteries, charge controllers and light fixtures from niche online retailers; everything else they bought at a local home improvement store. Assembled, each light station is worth about $1,200.

Hobden and his team selected their project from a list of approved concepts. They are overhauling the coding and support structure of a rudimentary light station system that engineering students designed last year. Capstone design projects are found everywhere among the country’s engineering schools.

These light stations are self-sufficient. A party platter-sized 100-watt solar panel affixed to the light’s pole charges a battery bank when it’s not fueling an LED light, which makes an efficient, low light that’s as easy on the eyes as it is on U.S. Forest Service regulations. Wireless communication connects a motion sensor that allows the LED light to switch on and off depending on skier traffic.

By the end of the winter term, the engineering students will have completed two additional prototypes. That will give them time to figure out the bug that caused one of the light station’s bulbs to flicker off and on during the recent test-run at Virginia Meissner Sno-park. Hobden suspects the cold may adversely affect some components.

“There’s a lot of room for improvement. The reason we’re here is to isolate problems, take them back to ground zero, make them work again and take them from there,” Hobden said. “Troubleshooting glitches is a part of the process.”

A bright idea, long in the making

David Smullin, a nordic skier actively involved with the ski community, moved to Bend in 1991. He always imagined how great it would be to illuminate nordic ski trails — particularly at Virginia Meissner Sno-park, located about 14 miles west of Bend on Century Drive.

Also an educator who recently retired from OSU-Cascades, Smullin inspired last year’s nordic ski light station project, initiated by OSU-Cascades engineering students.

The concept of lighting up nordic ski trails is not new. Nordic skiing hubs in the U.S. and Scandinavia have nordic centers that are lit up for night skiing. In the Pacific Northwest, several nordic ski areas feature lit trails.

Smullin, who was a board member of the nonprofit Meissner Nordic grooming club when it was called the Tumalo Langlauf Club, said completing the lodge in 2015 and paying off the Pistenbully groomer in 2017 took priority over lighting up some of Virginia Meissner’s 40 kilometers of trails.

Steve Roti, the vice president of Meissner Nordic, who’s been on the board for two years, can’t recall recent lighting plans for the sno-park.

“Those who ski at night use headlamps and seem happy with that,” Roti said, specifying that in this instance he speaks personally and not officially for Meissner Nordic. The club was nonetheless supportive of the testing efforts by OSU-Cascades students because they received permission from the Forest Service. That the sno-park uses Deschutes National Forest land means Hobden and his team had the added variable of sourcing their light from the sun, since there is no power grid at the sno-park. That adds to the cost of each lighting station.

The light stations’ soft, single-wave LED illumination — which the Forest Service deems unobtrusive to native nesting birds — would require each to be spaced 80 feet from each other. Illuminating a modest loop less than 2 miles long could cost more than $158,000, an amount that would require “a major fundraiser,” said Steve Roti, the vice president of Meissner Nordic.

Even if these light stations someday become a reality at Meissner, nocturnal skiers would have to plan their outings around the Forest Service’s 12-hour weekly limit on total light usage. Infrared motion sensors and lamp hoods would ensure no light gets wasted.

While Roti doesn’t ski at night, he’s interested to see if there will be a groundswell of enthusiasm for the lights.

Hobden and his team had collected survey answers from 10 Meissner users as of this report. Seventy percent said they would be “very likely” to ski in the evenings if a lighting system was implemented. Two skiers responded that they “already ski in the evenings; these lights would make it better.” One person responded “maybe.” No one opted for negative responses, although one respondent wondered about the lights’ impact on wildlife. Others wrote “Pretty cool idea”; “I would love it”; and “I want night races.”

Nordic skier Christiansen is accustomed to illuminated night skiing, which is common at a couple nordic ski centers in the Boston area, where she used to live.

“I did a lot of night skiing there; it was great,” she said, adding that she typically stuck to a 2-kilometer loop when she needed to train for races.

In Bend, Christiansen said she’ll ski at night whether by headlamp or semi-permanent trail lighting. Sometimes moonlight alone is enough to ski through Meissner’s trails.

A former ski coach, she said she’d support light stations for the high school nordic programs.

At Meissner, Smullin coaches the Redmond Community Nordic Club — which comprises Redmond’s three high school teams — and athletes from Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation. Because practice happens after school, his skiers wear headlamps. Illumination is good enough for a solitary ski or one with several friends, but it’s not bright enough for Smullin to effectively direct a practice the way he would like.

If Virginia Meissner’s nordic trails were lit at night, “then we’d have a place for kids to train and practice. We could hold night races,” Smullin said. “There are a lot of people who have been hoping for this. It’s something that would benefit working people — not like retired people like me who can get up there during the day.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7816, pmadsen@bendbulletin.com