How important are the terrain parks to you? and where do you go to use them?

[Vortex]

No polls here. Interested in the feed back. Loons' park has become my kids favorite followed by Waterville's. Loon has a mini progression park that has helped in my son's confidence.(important enough to keep him excited about the sport) Just listening to many riders...seems like alot of the teen folk enjoy Watervilles' set up. Kind of cool to watch it from the lift. For me parks are things I hike in in the summer.

 

[skibum1321]

I could care less if the mountain that I go to has a park. Smuggs didn't build the pipe until Feb this year and the Bush didn't have one at all.

 

[loafer89]

Sugarloaf has a cool terrain park on the Chaser trail, and I skied it last month and the hits where fairly large. The Superpipe was also huge and I just skied down the middle of it occasionally skiing up one side or the other, and I had the pipe to myself.

My son is only just starting to ski some of the smaller features in a terrain park.
Generally speaking though a terrain park is not a deciding factor in my choice of a ski area.

 

[awf170]

I could care less. I didn't even go through one terrian park this year.

 

[Greg]

Not at all important for me, but I do support them as it keeps the park rat-types in the parks, where I'm not...

 

[bvibert]

They are of no interest to me at all, but I recognize their importance in that they bring a lot of folks to the mountains that might not otherwise be there. To some that might be a bad thing, but they bring $$ which keeps the mountains open. Plus, like Greg said, they tend to stay in the parks and off the rest of the trails. :beer:

 

[kcyanks1]

I don't ski in them at all, so I don't care whether an area has one.

 

[Mark D]

I ride them when I'm in PA and when I was out west I rode steamboats. I mainly ride them at least in PA because theirs nothing worthy of free riding for a long peroid of time. And it is fun every now and then to do a little jib or a really slow 3.

 

[ga2ski]

Not very importatnt. I will go through them for fun or to ski the powder on the side of the trails that the park rats miss but that is it. Besides my knees are getting too old to take a beating in the park.

Ask me the same question about 8 years ago and I would have said they were important in terms of quality of the hits, but not a deciding factor in where in terms of which mountains I would ski.

 

[montageskier]

Well for me a park is a big factor in deciding were im going. Usually if im just traveling here in PA i go to another Pocnono resort with a good park. But when i got To Vt, NH i dont go for park. I go for real riding. So if it was between Jay Peak or Loon Id take Jay Peak. But then on the way home go through NH and go to Loon. But real riding comes first when i travel far.

 

[Vortex]

Different responses than I would have thought.

 

[hammer]

No interest for me...staying upright without getting air is enough for me for now.

My kids aren't interested yet either, but that could change...

 

[ga2ski]

Different responses than I would have thought.

Bob - This forum has a different audience than that other board we participate in. Ask the same question on SR site and I bet we get the a split in the responses and then a war between the park rats and the rest of the board.

 

[JimG.]

My kids like them...I'll go play in there when the kids do, but I don't go to a mountain because of the terrain park.

I think the amount of resources devoted to them is extreme compared to the real demand, and I think mountains see the need to have them because it's the current fad.

Hotdogging and neon clothes were all the rage once too.

 

[SnowRider]

Well I guess ill be the first on this topic to say that a park does matter. As a young rider im all for the massive hits, long rails and funboxes or sometimes even the pipe. In the moring ill rip up as much corduroy or good conditions as I can and then head to the park. If its a powder day then ill be rippin up the glades or regular trails. When I was at Jay for my vacation I stayed in the glades all the time because there was so much snow! If we hadnt gotton snow on any day, I would have ventured into the park to see what they have. This leads me to my next question. What is Jays park like? Can anyone tell me?

SnoRider

 

[skibum1321]

Well I guess ill be the first on this topic to say that a park does matter. As a young rider im all for the massive hits, long rails and funboxes or sometimes even the pipe. In the moring ill rip up as much corduroy or good conditions as I can and then head to the park. If its a powder day then ill be rippin up the glades or regular trails. When I was at Jay for my vacation I stayed in the glades all the time because there was so much snow! If we hadnt gotton snow on any day, I would have ventured into the park to see what they have. This leads me to my next question. What is Jays park like? Can anyone tell me?

SnoRider

There are some big hits but I wouldn't say it is anything special. You don't go to Jay for the park though.

 

[montageskier]

Jays park is okay by VT standards. Southern VT for parks and Northern VT for Pow. From pics and reports from Jays park I was suprised with how good it looked, but it cant be compard to Strattons or Snows.

 

[highpeaksdrifter]

My kids like them...I'll go play in there when the kids do, but I don't go to a mountain because of the terrain park.

I think the amount of resources devoted to them is extreme compared to the real demand, and I think mountains see the need to have them because it's the current fad.
.

Just like any other business you give the customers what they want. If you don't someone else will. It wasn't that long ago that the majprity of ski areas banned snowboarding.

I'll go in whan my youngest does too. I like playin in the half pipe best.

 

[Marc]

The park....


Isn't that where you leave the car?


Yeah, I'm all for them. I'd have to leave my car on the street, otherwise.

 

[riverc0il]

Generally, the bigger and better the park is at a particular ski area, the less likely I am to ski that area :lol: Any one else notice a correlation between big resorts and big parks? I am glad they are there, as Greg said, because it keeps the slopes I enjoy skiing less crowded