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Our terrain park contest drew entries from around the world. As the entries arrived, it didn’t take much analysis to land on two major themes in this year’s 15th annual contest.

The first theme was derived using simple math: We received more than twice as many entries in the Events category as we did in either the Features or Bread and Butter categories. A little analysis revealed why: Terrain parks have always been a place where friends gather, encourage each other to dial in new tricks, and generally enjoy time on snow together in a welcoming environment. A majority of the events in this year’s contest reflect these traits, only on custom-built parks, and mostly in a competitive format.

The other theme is that park builders are constructing a lot of features out of reused stuff. This isn’t a new thing in the world of terrain parks, of course. Since the early days of terrain parks, most features were something else before they were stuck in the snow and ridden by skiers and snowboarders. Back then it was more out of necessity, because management didn’t want to spend money on parks. Now, though, there seems to be a realization that recycling old stuff that was bound for the scrap yard or landfill is actually a responsible thing to do. Way to be green, everybody.

But enough about themes. Last year, we added the Bread and Butter category to learn more about the most popular features in your park, or the most popular park in your system. Entries poured in, so we kept the category this year. However, we’re planning a few tweaks for next year’s contest to showcase park builders’ hard work and creativity in some different ways. Stay tuned for that.

The winners of the 2019 SAM Terrain Park Contest are:

Feature: "Murray's Dance Floor," Blue Mountain, Ont.

Bread and Butter: "Fat Boxes," Mt. Hood Meadows, Ore.

Event: FRZN Rail Jam, Blue Mountain, Ont.

 

Category winners receive a prize pack provided by:

 

 

 

 

 

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1. Ash & Steel 
Mount Snow, Vt.

Carinthia Parks at Mount Snow collaborated with Snowboy Productions on this five-day-long event. The one-of-a-kind transition and jib park was riddled with wood, metal, and snow features throughout the trees of Carinthia’s Prospector park; much of the wood and metal used was recycled from the local forest and old lifts. With two snowcats, several diggers, and the Snowboy team, the entire park came together in just three days. The first three days of the event were a private photo/video shoot featuring invited athletes to build up hype. It then opened to the public for two days. Ash & Steel produced tons of content and, more importantly, got a lot of folks in the park to experience a unique set up.

2. Woodward Peace Park #MyPeaceParkEdit
Killington, Vt.

The Woodward Peace Park made its debut in February at Powdr-owned Killington, Vt. (and Boreal Mountain, Calif.). The Peace Park is an ever-evolving park designed to maximize creativity—and world peace. The Killington Park's unique, non-traditional halfpipe had features built into it, along with different wall heights and points of access. The build took eight days and involved three K-Parks cat operators, two SPT operators, and six hand crew to polish things up. The tools: two Pistenbully Park Pros and a Pistenbully 400 winch cat, an 18-foot Zaugg, plenty of shovels and rakes, and a Stihl chainsaw. The #MyPeaceParkEdit contest invited guests to submit 60-second videos of their riding. Winners were invited to the championships at Boreal, May 1-5.

 

3. TETON SURF CLASSIC
GRAND TARGHEE, WYO.

The 2nd Annual Teton Surf Classic (TSC) snowboard event March 31, 2019, was a collaborative effort between the terrain park crew, Teton Valley Ski Education Foundation (TVSEF), sponsors, and resort marketing. All season long, the crew built features in North Pole Park that could be sculpted, come contest time, into the “North Shore.” Final prep took three days with three cats running, and all the features were hand finished. The course featured huge quarter pipes—the final one in front of the DJ and vendors was about 15 feet high—and spines, step ups and step downs, bowls, volcanoes, and rollers for pumping and carrying speed. Inspired by events such as Peace Park, Big Wave Challenge, and Holy Bowly, park builders put their own Targhee touch on this event. The jam-style contest reached capacity with 150 riders on a bluebird day, including 15 groms. Podium winners received Kinco Glove Shaka trophies, and the event raised $8,500 for the TVSEF snowboard program—the largest fundraiser in TVSEF history, and more than double last year’s effort.

 

4. BOWLY DOWN UNDER
THREDBO, AUSTRALIA

The Thredbo terrain parks crew and Snowboy Productions built this elaborate transition-style park. Snowboy brought a machine operator and eight hand crew to work with the Thredbo team. Three cats ran a total of 102 hours farming and stacking snow. A 12 tonne excavator put in 48 hours of moving snow, and hand shapers spent nearly a full work week finishing up. The Bowly Down Under four-day media shoot with pro snowboarders was followed by a public opening, with everyone from little shredders to grandma and grandpa enjoying the fun and flowy nature of the park. To maintain it all, the crew promoted a “you ride it, you rake it” philosophy. And it worked: at the end of each day, almost 100 riders were out raking.

 

5. FRZN RAIL JAM
BLUE MOUNTAIN RESORT, ONT.

The FRZN Rail Jam was held Jan. 5 in its original location near the resort village for the first time since 2009 (the event wasn’t held from 2010 to 2015, and was in a terrain park 2016 to 2018). To celebrate, the resort debuted a few custom rails made in-house out of old snowmaking pipe by park builder Dave Wright. The set-up included a 25-foot down-flat-down rail, 12-foot-long tube with gap to 20-foot donkey-d rail, and a 20-foot flat round bar with the option to gap over to a 30-foot waterfall rail. It took Wright and fellow park builder Ben Carelton one night to build using a PRINOTH cat. Two park crew staff put on the finishing touches with rakes, scoops, and vert cutters the following day. The field of 100 skiers and riders sessioned the rails while the Red Bull truck provided the soundtrack and a huge crowd of spectators enjoyed the show.

 

6. KAATSKILLZ PRO-AM
HUNTER MOUNTAIN, N.Y.

The Kaatskillz Pro-Am, held Feb. 23, featured a skatepark-inspired build and a variety of new and unique features, such as two custom Monster Energy rails, a gas pipe, five miniature tabletops, and a quarter pipe at the bottom of the course. Monster Energy supplied a $1,500 cash prize that was split evenly between the ski and snowboard podiums, as well as plenty of additional swag and prizes courtesy of Oakley and Yakima. About 75 competitors took to the course, which was built in about three days using two groomers and a small excavator. Peak Resorts VP of terrain development Elia Hamilton came up with the design and handled most of the machine work, and all eight park crew members put on the final touches using rakes, shovels, and other tools. The build required a lot of snow, so Hunter snowmakers turned the guns up to 11 for three straight days. Joey Bauer, aka Joey B., brought his New Yorker persona to the mic as emcee.

 

7. GIRLS GATHERING
SNOW VALLEY SKI CLUB, EDMONTON, ALBERTA

The Girls Gathering, the brainchild of Snow Valley park crew member Jenaya Jenkins, aims to get girls and women to experience the terrain park in a safe and inclusive environment. About 25 ladies ranging from 5 to 45 years old participated. The beginner and advanced terrain parks got full rebuilds three days prior to the event using a PistenBully 400 and a skid steer on snow tracks, and then the crew hand-raked, shoveled, and shaped both parks. The event day was bright and sunny and a balmy -26C (-15F) in the morning, when the women got coaching. After everyone went inside to for lunch (and to thaw), they came back out for the competition portion where, the girls could show off all the tricks they learned earlier in the day. Prizes and giveaways closed everything out.

 

8. SLASH BASH
PINE KNOB, MICH.

The postseason “Slash Bash” was a volunteer effort that brought more than 130 skiers and riders together on a rainy day in late March. Supported by Burton, Rome, and the local skate shop People Skate and Snowboard, the inaugural event was a low-budget affair. After the resort closed, groomers farmed most of the snow from nearby runs into the tow rope park, and six park crew worked gratis for three days, hand shaping tons of transition using Arena Snow Parks vert shovels and SPT and Planet rakes. The setup included two jumps, six volcanoes/satellite dishes, one hip with a bowled corner, 11 jibs, one quarterpipe—and one hand-shaped halfpipe with hips on either side, a bowled pocket at the end, and a table top loveseat on the left. In all, the crew built 22 hits and fun was had by all.

 

9. RED BULL PARKWAY OPEN
MOUNTAIN CREEK, N.J.

Red Bull and Mountain Creek Terrain Parks created an authentically “Jersey” event with an urban theme that also incorporated the arts. The inaugural Red Bull Parkway Open snowboarding contest featured a plaza-style setup with Jersey barriers, guardrails, a full-size shipping container, a 23-ton dump truck—which was big enough to drive to its location in the venue—and more. The build took an entire week with several machine operators and a dozen park crew members, led by mountain ops director Matt Carter and operators Marc Tremain and Jeff Anderson. The team moved the shipping container from one of the resort’s boneyards to the venue using a Lull and a flatbed. The Jersey barriers were purchased specifically for the event. Other features, such as the guardrails, were fabricated in-house. More than 100 competitors participated in the jam-style event on Feb. 23, with pros vying for the $5,000 cash purse. Afterward, a free on-snow concert featuring three local punk-rock bands closed out the event.

 

10. REVEGETATE
MT. HOOD MEADOWS, ORE.

ReVegetate is a two-day event in late-April composed of 1) a rail jam and 2) a speed and style course; the proceeds from registration benefit regional revegetation efforts in wildfire-damaged areas. For the rail jam on day one, the park crew transformed the area's beginner learning terrain into a sea of jibs, giving the 60 participants (40 snowboarders, 20 skiers) multiple line options for the jam format. It took a week to build with a crew of two cat operators and four diggers. The speed and style course snakes down 1,180 vertical feet on the lower mountain. The course was built over a two-week period using all available resources, including four dedicated operators driving a mix of three PistenBully Park Pros, one PistenBully 400 winch, a BR 350 Sherpa winch with 18’ Zaugg, a Prinoth Bison X and a Prinoth Lietwolf winch. Six to eight hand-crew members rotated shifts using hand tools and chainsaws to spruce things up. The final product included an abundance of rollers, berms, high-speed sections and six separate judged features (two jumps, three jibs and a quarter pipe) that, when combined with competitors’ time, revealed their standing. Terrain park manager T.J. Maloney credited multiple departments for contributing to the event’s success.

 

11. CRASHED ICE
LOON MOUNTAIN, N.H.

The Red Bull Crashed Ice qualifier at Loon may not be a “traditional” entry into the SAM Terrain Park Contest, but it’s certainly an example of how terrain park builders’ skills can be utilized for out-of-the-box events. Throughout the winter, the Loon team is focused on excellent snow quality, but their focus shifted to doing something unusual—building a downhill ice-skating course. Red Bull ice-cross athlete Cameron Naasz consulted the Loon team on course design and location. From there, the multi-department event ops team of snowmaking, terrain parks, events, racing, and others took to the hill. The build was very similar to that of a terrain park. First, the team roughed-in the course with snowcats, shovels and other tools. Then it moved on to the finishing work, which included constantly spraying down the course with the equivalent of garden-hose nozzles attached to snowmaking hoses. Cold temps helped freeze things up nicely. It took nearly a week to build the 600-foot-long icy course that that started with a hip jump and then wound through tree islands to the finish.

 

12. TORAH BRIGHT MINI SHRED
THREDBO, AUSTRALIA

This year’s Torah Bright Mini Shred transition park, designed specifically for the grommets, took inspiration from the Bowly Down Under at Thredbo. The free, one-day event drew more than 300 kids, who got to to ride alongside of and get riding tips from Olympian Torah Bright and other pro snowboarders. The transition course allowed the pros to teach kids that park riding isn’t just about rails and jumps, but how to find the right line. For the build, the Thredbo parks crew spent eight machine hours in one snow cat and a three-tonne excavator. A team of five park staff spent a day and a half on hand-work polishing things up. A local artist spent a day and a half making snow sculptures, adding to the aesthetic of this fun kids’ event.

 

13. SUN'S OUT GUNS OUT
WINSPORT

WinSport closed out the season with its second annual Sun’s Out Guns Out Rail Jam in March. The event gives the public an opportunity to have fun and showcase what they learned over the winter—and win cash and swag. Plus, staff competed in a special section for the title of park king or queen and to win some swag (and bragging rights). WinSport Academy coaches served as the judges for the staff comp. The entire setup took one day to build, with one terrain park builder in a Prinoth Bison X and three additional park crew members doing hand work. To allow riders of all abilities to enjoy the course and get creative, it included a gap to down bar, wallride to snow stairs, flat-down box, 30-foot down bar, and a down-flat-down rail. The inaugural GROM Rail Jam for kids 13 and under went down on the same day, with 15 kids competing for swag. Their set-up had a small flat bar, a flat box, and a teardrop box. Overall, 100 skiers and snowboarders participated.

 

14. VAN'S "BEST METHOD" CONTEST
BEAVER VALLEY SNOW PARK, ONT.

The Vans "Best Method" was conceived as a crowd-pleaser event to be held in conjunction with Beaver Valley's end-of-season Banked Slalom Snowboard Festival. The contest featured a custom-built, giant hip at the bottom of the main park, located in front of the base lodge party deck, and just below the finish coral of the banked slalom course. A field of 260 banked slalom contestants, and dozens more park riders, threw their “best method” on the hip during a one-hour afternoon session. The hip was designed by Snow Park head honcho Caleb Bosse with a graduated take-off zone to accommodate all skill levels and a massive 80-foot-long landing area. Bosse used a Prinoth Bison X to rough in the hip, and a crew of diggers fine-tuned its shape. The build took two days. Three legendary Canadian snowboarders judged the event: Kevin Young, Dennis Bannock and Jon Roth. Recently-retired Canadian National Halfpipe Team rider and Snow Parks head coach Trevor Niblett was the winner.

 

15. THE TRIPLE DOWN PARK SERIES
EDMONTON, ALBERTA

The Triple Down was a series of three terrain park contests at each of Edmonton’s local ski areas: Rabbit Hill Ski Resort (Jan. 9), Sunridge Ski Area (Feb. 24) and Snow Valley Ski Club (Mar. 3). The series encouraged terrain park riders to sample all three parks and spend more time on snow. Each park showcased unique features on vertical drops of between 35 and 50 meters (115 to 164 feet). It was a collaborative effort: marketing resources were shared to promote the event, most retail shops in greater Edmonton got involved, and the three park crews put major hours into rebuilding and refining their parks, as well as chatting up local riders. Three age categories kept it fun for all ages and levels. More than 120 riders took part overall, including eight who competed in all three events. This will now be an annual event.

 

16. THE SPRING PICKLE PARK PARTY
BLUE MOUNTAIN RESORT, ONT.

Last season’s Spring Pickle Park Party included the usual helping of pickles—both to eat and ones made of snow—along with some unique features for the 100 participants during the free, jam-style event, held as a “thank you” to the resort’s park fans and passholders. Park builder Dave Wright spent three days shaping the “pickle line:” two pickle-shaped decks connected by a 30-foot rail transitioned into a third, curved pickle shaped into a bowl, with a hip on both sides and a 30-foot jump that sent riders over it. The park crew spent two days on hand work and setup. A few features were set into each pickle, including a hanging pickle-barrel suspended from a small snow gun tower, a pyramid with a barrel bonk, and a handrail. All of the features were built in-house. The free BBQ during the event, naturally, included an endless supply of pickles.

 

17. Back in the Village
Sunshine Village, Alberta, Canada

 The park crew at Sunshine Village once again collaborated with Snowboy Productions and the SRD crew of riders on a unique park build that brought together 80 invited snowboarders from Canada's west coast, interior British Columbia, and Alberta for three days of riding, filming, and fun. "Back in the Village" was the sequel to "Dawn of the Village," which went down in the spring of 2018 at Sunshine. The build took roughly three days using a PistenBully Park Pro, a PB 400, rakes, shovels, string lines, and a crew of about 10 shapers, which consisted of a few Sunshine Village park crew, Snowboy crewmembers, and a few volunteers from SRD. The layout was basically Holy Bowly-style snow features and transitions with a variety of jibs mixed in. The park opened to the public for a full weekend after the three-day closed shoot.

 

CAST YOUR VOTE!

Select your favorite event!

Select Your Favorite01 - ASH & STEEL02 - WOODWARD PEACE PARK03 - TETON SURF CLASSIC04 - BOWLY DOWN UNDER05 - FRZN RAIL JAM06 - KAATSKILLZ PRO-AM07 - GIRLS GATHERING08 - SLASH BASH09 - RED BULL PARKWAY OPEN10 - REVEGETATE11 - CRASHED ICE12 - TORAH BRIGHT MINI SHRED13 - SUN'S OUT GUNS OUT14 - VAN'S "BEST METHOD" CONTEST15 - THE TRIPLE DOWN PARK SERIES16 - THE SPRING PICKLE PARK PARTY17 - BACK IN THE VILLAGE Invalid Input

Select your favorite feature!

Select Your Favorite01 - BUTTERCUP WALL RIDES02 - BOMB DROP03 - BUTTERED NOODLE04 - MURRAY'S DANCE FLOOR05 - THE RICHTER SCALE06 - THE GLOBE07 - THE HIGH TRAP RAIL08 - YUKI BALL09 - MAIN LINE JUMPS Invalid Input

Select your favorite bread & butter!

Select Your Favorite01 - OPENING DAY PARK02 - THE THREE PACK03 - BLACK MAMBA04 - THE FAT BOXES05 - WEIRD WALL06 - DICE ROLL07 - THREDBO SNOW SERIES Invalid Input

Submit Your Vote!

 

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1. Buttercup Wall Rides
Mt. Hood Meadows, Ore.

Sustainability is one of Mt. Hood Meadows’ core values, and these two wall rides were built with that in mind. Park crew members John Ogletree and Jared Scholz built them, using leftover lift towers from the original Buttercup chairlift, which was replaced in 2017. They cut the towers in half lengthwise and used them as coping at the top of the walls. Plus, they made the frames largely out of reused stock from retired park features. New sheet metal was used for the siding. The shorter wall measures 5.5 feet high and 16 feet long, the taller wall, 9.5 feet high and 8 feet long. Ogletree and Scholz took 10 days/120 labor hours to build each wall. Built-in fork hole sleeves make it easy to safely lift and move them using a fork cat, so it only takes the crew about an hour to set the walls.

 

2. Bomb Drop
Loon Mountain Resort, N.H

This unique behemoth was built for the 19th annual Last Call event. After an 18-hour build using multiple snow cats and chainsaws, the Bomb Drop appeared. From a complete stop on the lip of the top deck, riders dropped 10 feet into an elevated mini ramp. The most fluid riders absorbed the first transition, quickly adjusted, and popped hard off the second transition – easily touching down on the landing. It took even the most seasoned riders, including Scotty Lago, Chas Guldemond, and Jed Sky, a few tries to dial in their approach.

 

3. Buttered Noodle
Spirit Mountain, Minn.

The Noodle is a 40-foot-long, four-inch tube that was purposefully built without mid-rail supports to allow the rail to flex and move while ridden. It’s been a favorite of Spirit Mountain park riders. To change things up, last winter the crew added a 15-foot-long all-snow butter pad underneath the middle of the rail and, presto, created the Buttered Noodle. A snow cat pushed a pile of snow to the spot, and the park crew raked it into shape. The butter pad largely stabilized the rail, but the new twist was a hit with park goers, and a nice way to add a different dimension to a popular feature in Spirit’s rope-tow park.

 

4. Murray’s Dance Floor 
Blue Mountain, Ont. 

The crew at Blue Mountain does a custom build for the resort’s Friday Night Rail Jams. For the event on Feb. 15, VP of mountain operations Murray Frankcom gave the park crew some LED lights to spark some creativity. So, they built Murray’s Dance Floor. It started with a below the surface take off, dug using a mini-excavator. That launched riders over an eight-foot gap onto a 12-foot-long butter box—Murray’s Dance Floor—that was lit up by the color-changing LEDs. Riders then cleared a two-foot gap onto a 20-foot down rail. The feature was built in one night, by head park builder Dave Wright using a PRINOTH cat, and shaped in one day by Blue Mountain park staff.

 

5. The Richter Scale
Mountain High, Calif.

Mountain High is located on the San Andreas fault, and the Richter Scale feature “represents our relationship with California’s sleeping giant,” says VP of sales and marketing John McColly. “It measures how much riders are shaking up the park, and the readout can be seen on their faces.” An outside shop bent the transition coping, and the rest was built in-house over nearly two months, using steel framing, plywood paneling for the sides, and a plastic sliding surface. The Richter Scale is 12 feet high with a 16-foot-long run-in, and the sliding surface is three feet wide. The lower-angle panel at the very top of the ramp allows skiers and riders to stall or spin at the pinnacle of the ride. To move this feature around the mountain, Mt. High uses a system of three skis—each four feet long and one foot wide—so it can be towed by a snow cat.

 

6. The Globe
Summit at Snoqualmie, Wash.

Recycled buoys have been fan-favorite jibs here for years. This metal buoy, which came from a shipyard in Seattle, is unique for its 60-inch diameter and globe shape. The buoy jib fleet's blue and green color scheme presented a perfect opportunity to transform this buoy into a jib-able Earth. In a nod to Washington’s many active volcanoes, the crew set the globe atop a snowcano along a lift line. To get it there, the crew used a snowcat with forks. It took about an hour for three crew members—fork cat operator, blade cat operator, and a hand shaper—to set the feature, which is held in place by an eight-foot section of an old lift tower welded to the metal shell that’s buried in the snowcano. The park crew shared the globe’s story with folks getting off the lift, to inspire them to reuse and recycle what they can.

 

7. The High Trap Rail
Mount Snow, Vt.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. “The High Trap” consists of 20 feet of square lift towers from a decommissioned double chairlift. The feature stands about five feet tall and is 13 feet long. It took Rory Bruder around eight hours to weld five sections of tower together and fabricate this five-foot-tall, 13-foot-long feature. It took the crew about two hours to set it up in Carinthia’s large Gulch park by cat driver Rob Black. The feature allowed advanced park riders to pull a wide variety of creative tricks all winter.

 

8. Yuki Ball
Thredbo, Australia

These features—there are two of them—were made in-house through a collaboration with Yuki Threads, a local snowboard company. It took one day to fabricate and weld two steel-frame hemispheres together, and also attach the posts that keep the balls stable in the snow. Each post is made from six feet of recycled steel snowmaking pipe welded to the shell. One Yuki Ball is about 6.5 feet in diameter, the other, five feet in diameter. A local artist hand-painted the branding on-site. The balls can be half buried, so riders of all abilities can bonk or stall them, or set up proud for advanced riders as a bonk.

 

9. MAIN LINE JUMPS
THE ROCK SNOWPARK, WIS.

It can be a battle to provide consistent quality jumps in the Midwest due to frequent weather swings, limited space, and lack of snow resources. At The Rock Snowpark, though, powerful snowmaking and the hill’s natural slope make an ideal location for a three-pack of jumps. Those on skier’s left of the park progress in size: The first starts the season at 10-15 feet, the second at about 20 feet, and final jump at around 35 feet. Each has steep, 30-degree landings. After three full days of snowmaking, it took several days to push out the landings using a PistenBully Park 400. Then the takeoffs were built in one night, using the cat and a few park crew doing hand work. The jumps grew a bit as the season went on and the local skiers and riders progressed their skills, thanks to the consistency of the jumps’ takeoffs and landings.

 

CAST YOUR VOTE!

Select your favorite event!

Select Your Favorite01 - ASH & STEEL02 - WOODWARD PEACE PARK03 - TETON SURF CLASSIC04 - BOWLY DOWN UNDER05 - FRZN RAIL JAM06 - KAATSKILLZ PRO-AM07 - GIRLS GATHERING08 - SLASH BASH09 - RED BULL PARKWAY OPEN10 - REVEGETATE11 - CRASHED ICE12 - TORAH BRIGHT MINI SHRED13 - SUN'S OUT GUNS OUT14 - VAN'S "BEST METHOD" CONTEST15 - THE TRIPLE DOWN PARK SERIES16 - THE SPRING PICKLE PARK PARTY17 - BACK IN THE VILLAGE Invalid Input

Select your favorite feature!

Select Your Favorite01 - BUTTERCUP WALL RIDES02 - BOMB DROP03 - BUTTERED NOODLE04 - MURRAY'S DANCE FLOOR05 - THE RICHTER SCALE06 - THE GLOBE07 - THE HIGH TRAP RAIL08 - YUKI BALL09 - MAIN LINE JUMPS Invalid Input

Select your favorite bread & butter!

Select Your Favorite01 - OPENING DAY PARK02 - THE THREE PACK03 - BLACK MAMBA04 - THE FAT BOXES05 - WEIRD WALL06 - DICE ROLL07 - THREDBO SNOW SERIES Invalid Input

Submit Your Vote!

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1. Opening Day Park
The Rock Snowpark, Wis.

“Early season in the Midwest is special,” says The Rock Snowpark mountain ops manager Ryan Ruffing. Everyone is eager to get out on snow, and it doesn’t need to be huge jump lines or elaborate rail gardens—just about anything will do. Relatively new ownership (as of 2017) and a new mountain ops and park crew made last year’s prep for opening at The Rock an exciting time. The team took to the hill on Nov. 21 to get a park ready for a Nov. 23 opening. In two days, with Ruffing pushing snow in a snowcat and marketing director Riley May, park crew Rayce Ruffing, and Danny Sokol—along with a few local riders—working the ground, they set two 20-foot round bars, two 10-foot boxes, a rainbow box, down-flat-down bar, and even built a 15-foot jump. When the tow-rope started spinning, the stoke was high among the crowd of locals who came together to enjoy it.

 

2. The Three Pack
Boston Mills | Brandywine, Ohio

Many of the guests who visit Boston Mills and Brandywine spend at least some time in the park, so the parks have become a focus of operations. Builds are geared toward skiers and riders of all abilities. The early-season snowmaking push at Brandywine uses every snow gun in the terrain park to build the park’s most popular features: a line of three jumps that stays in place all season long. The jumps progress in size from about 15 feet to 35 feet. The mountain ops team and park crew work together to push and shape the jumps, which takes 12 to16 hours to complete. Up to two cat operators using PRINOTH Bison X and PistenBully 600 cats do the heavy lifting, and about four park crew members do the fine tuning daily, utilizing digital levels, measuring tape, rakes, and shovels.

 

3. Black Mamba
Mount Snow, Vt.

The Black Mamba, 36 feet long and made from an old lift tower, is easily one of Carinthia’s most popular features. It has been a part of the Carinthia rail fleet for more than 10 years, and many skiers and riders expect to see it from opening day until the park closes sometime in April. While it might look intimidating when it’s off the snow, the setup makes it a welcoming feature for all abilities. Set on a slight downward pitch, with a wide set-back lip and rounded edges down the length, this feature is primed for learning new tricks. It took cat operator Rob Black about two hours to get the area prepared and the Mamba set on snow, and two diggers spent another two hours on raking and finish work.

 

4. The Fat Boxes
Mt. Hood Meadows, Ore.

These features are two of four large dancefloor-style boxes that the Meadows crew built to aid guests in progression. The up-down box is 16 feet up and 16 feet down, and the flat down is 12 feet of flat and 16 feet down. Lengthwise, they’re bigger features than many beginner park goers would think to try. But at four feet wide, they invite those new to jibbing and serve a broad range of abilities. Park crew members John Ogletree and Jared Scholz fabricated the Fat Box frames in-house from 2” X 2” stock with half-inch plywood skirting. The sliding surface is half-inch HDPE plastic with two-inch round bar coping. Each was built with fork holes so they can be safely and easily transported among Meadows' various parks with a fork cat.

 

5. Weird Wall
Summit at Snoqualmie, Wash.

As wall rides go, this one is a little different. The big 10’ X 7’ main panel looks like a typical wall ride. The two 7’ X 5’ side panels add more options. And the 18-foot creeper rail (not pictured) on the back of the wall completes this weird—as in, good—package. Not wanting to leave weird enough alone, the parks crew asked artist and Lib Tech rider Phil Hansen to use the feature’s large plywood panels as a canvas. Hansen spent two days pre-season with a box of rattle cans and painted a jib-able piece of art for guests to enjoy. It was one of the first large features to be set in the park and, despite its size, was a popular spot for riders to progress their skills and get higher up the wall as the season went along.

 

6. Dice Roll
Hunter Mountain, N.Y.

This past year, the Empire Park staff took a new approach to the skatepark-inspired Kaatskillz Pro-Am event, and it led to what became a park staple: a set of five square tabletops. The tabletops were laid out with one tabletop in each corner and a central one, similar to the number five on a set of dice. This created a variety of transitional approaches for skiers and riders of all levels. More advanced skiers and riders could approach head-on, catching the most air, while others chose to ride them as spines, side-hits, or re-directs. The layout of the tabletops created a similar back and forth feel to a bowl you would see in a skatepark. Park crews plan to take the lessons learned from these features and incorporate them into future builds.

 

7. Thredbo Snow Series 2019
Thredbo, Australia

A total of more than 500 skiers and riders competed in the five-event Thredbo Snow Series, each event a different discipline: rail jam, ridercross, freeride, slopestyle, and big air. The series has categories for all abilities and ages, including junior (17 and under) and grom (12 and under) age categories. The freeride venue is an off-piste trail filled with rocks and drops, no build required. The rail jam build took two cats five hours and five park crewmembers a whole day to set a donkey tube, A-frame, flat-down tube, and fly-out tube. Slopestyle used an existing three-pack of jumps, plus multi-rail features at the top and the bottom of the course that took a half-day for two cats and three park crew to set. The ridercross course took one cat operator 15 hours to build, and the park crew spent a few hours polishing the “Wu-Tang” feature at the start. The big air comp used an existing 45-foot kicker.1. 8.