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Before terrain parks, pipe crews, $90,000 Zaugg groomers and the Winter X Games, there was . . . nothing? Not really. While it’s hard to imagine a resort landscape that isn’t dominated by mega hits and monster rails, resort sponsored pro teams who jib all day and big-time TV events which take big-time investment, there used to be simpler times in jib land. These long-forgotten days involved renegade riders who crafted their own rails deep in the woods. Using fallen timber, hand saws and hammers, the first generation of freeriders creatively sculpted natural lines into primitive, underground terrain parks. Today, their low-tech tactics are being rediscovered. It’s both easy and inexpensive for resort operators to take a page out of the guerrilla jib handbook to create or enhance their terrain park offerings.


The Low Cost of Nature
One of the best attributes of underground, retro jib features is their cost. Resorts can install them for a fraction of what they would spend on designing and welding rails. And while local hardcores may have been creating these features for years (saving your resort time and money while also raising risk managers’ eyebrows), it’s easy to adapt their techniques to create retro jibs that won’t freak out the legal department. Here’s how a few resorts are tapping into this phenomenon, and how they also manage this type of terrain to keep the guest experience fun and safe.

“I can tell you one thing, I'll never hear the end of it if I talk about the locations of the hidden goods to a member of the media,” laughs Sunday River’s Alex Kaufman during a recent interview about Sunday River’s natural jib features, many of which exist off the trail maps, unmarked and unknown to all save locals. “We definitely have some natty jibs, particularly one right off the tubing run.” The “natty jib” in question is a large tree. Sunday River lets the kids build a booter (jump) at the bottom and they soar vertically up the tree, using the large pine as an upright rail. Total cost to the resort? Nothing.

“With the type of terrain around here offering many fallen ponderosa trees, the backcountry jibs are pretty sick,” says Craig Baldwin, base operations manager of Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort in Nevada. According to Baldwin, “these jibs are becoming more popular because of the ‘core’ nature of being away from the park.”

“And ripping it up on a 40- to 60-foot tree is pretty cool, too,” he adds.

Like Kaufman, Baldwin is “seeing an in increase in ‘bonking’ off of the side of trees.” Says Baldwin, “these guys are ramping up along side, getting big air, and giving a little ‘love tap’ as high as possible.”

Of course, not all natural jibs are like Sunday River’s tree or Las Vegas’ 40-footlong fallen ponderosas. And not every mountain has suitable trees or sites where it is possible to allow natural hits like the ones at Sunday River or Las Vegas’ to evolve. When this is the case, it’s possible to turn to some of the more creative mountain ops guys on your staff, and let them go to work.

This is what happened at Beaver Creek back in 1995, when the mountain created an under-the-radar run called Stickline. At the time, no one else had anything like it, and Stickline remains one of the boldest moves in park design. The concept was simple: put some snowboarders in charge of a steep wooded slope, and let them go to town. The result was a hairball alley run with berms, logslides, jumps and other features, all made from downed timber. If it sounds a bit dangerous, it was. “Stickline has changed,” admits Beaver Creek’s director of operations, Doug Lovell. “A lot of the berms are gone.”

Stickline’s evolution, however, is an example of how to manage natural, retro-style terrain features and keep their funky flavor intact, without exposing your resort to excessive risk. “We still have Stickline,” says Lovell. “It has a bunch of natural log features, it’s signed and on the trail map. The signage lets guests know what they’re getting into, and we can close the run if there’s no snow.”

Lovell adds, “so many times people want to talk about renegade stuff, but because of the new safety codes, we’ve been taking down a lot of the natural stuff and putting it into the park. We are trying to contain everything into parks that have boundaries, where we can be responsible for it and it is appropriate. There’s a lot of stuff that people have built (in Beaver Creek); some of it is safe and some is not.”

The key, as is often the case, is management. Sunday River’s tree works because of its location: directly off a tubing run and in an area removed from beginner terrain. The resort, says Kaufmann, keeps an eye on it, and the patrol responds quickly if there’s an accident. Stickline works because the patrol can close and open the area when appropriate, and because the area is clearly posted as a natural terrain park zone, for expert skiers and snowboarders only.

Not surprisingly, both approaches are incredibly popular with guests, especially the younger demographic. “A lot of snowboarders and skiers are riding wood,” says Lovell. The movement has led the resort to develop natural log features along the sides of Beaver Creek’s expert terrain park, Moonshine. The natural jibs complement the more rustic Stickline and add to the variety of features that the resort offers in its terrain parks.


Going Au Naturel
How can your resort take advantage of this trend? The first step is to identify zones where this type of activity is appropriate. Like terrain parks, it’s important to locate these jib zones away from general skier traffic. Signage is also important. And you need to dedicate staff to the project. “I keep close tabs because it can get out of control fast,” says Lovell.

In control or not, there’s no doubt that this segment of the market is growing fast, and along with the growth comes increased demand for new jib and terrain park features. The growth of park riding in general is not news to most retailers (who saw the sales of twin-tip skis explode in 2006, with nearly a 70 percent increase in units sold) and most resorts, which have scrambled to install terrain parks or purchase Zaugg machines for halfpipes. As the proliferation of terrain parks continues, the trick to staying competitive is offering interesting new features that set your mountain apart. Retro features made of natural materials can be part of this strategy.

“We intend to create hits in the woods,” says Evan Dybvig of the progressive, terrain park oriented mountain Whaleback, located in New Hampshire. While Dybvig won’t divulge exactly what he plans for his trees, Whaleback’s cutting-edge, youth-oriented approach to skiing is worthy of note. If places like Whaleback are doing it, and Beaver Creek has already done it, perhaps it’s time for you to consider it, too.

Even if you’re not ready to commit to a full-on retro park, there’s always the opportunity to use these kind of features in your standard park, or for competitions. “We have an underground tournament that takes place every winter based on our natural log features,” admits Beaver Creek’s Lovell. “Each feature has a par, and you get scored like golf. We never know when it is going to happen.

“We used log rails for the Sessions Logjam we hosted in March,” adds Heavenly Valley’s Russell Pecoraro. “The riders loved it.”

The verdict is in. Whether it be competition, a hidden jib for locals only, or a dedicated natural jib run in the trees like Beaver Creek’s Stickline, with a chainsaw and some basic power tools it’s possible to add one or many of these retro-style features to your resort. The kids love them, the materials are basically free, and the time input minimal. Maybe it’s time your mountain got derailed, too.