20/21 terrain park nightmare rumors

14177191:jakeordie said:
No, I don't. This isn't about money and politics, it's about jumps and rails.

Part of vail's attempt to monopolize skiing is convincing us there's no other way, like we need them.....there is always another way :)
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Most ski resorts operate to make a profit, rails and jumps just cost money, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here, Vail runs about half of the major resort in the USA, only a fraction of all ski resorts, no where near a monopoly and they will never monopolize.

**This post was edited on Sep 24th 2020 at 1:58:43pm
 
To add to eheath this isn’t necessarily limited to vail and large resorts, a very very small hill in maine , lost valley use to have an elite park, as in it rivaled Sunday river and sugarloaf (in quality not size) . And they where presumably spending a ton of money to maintain it , but over the last 4 years they have reduced it to the standard run down mountain park that is sketchy and not safe to say the least. Why? Because we don’t make up that large of the skiing market and it made them save money.
 
14177196:eheath said:
Most ski resorts operate to make a profit, rails and jumps just cost money, I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here, Vail runs about half of the major resort in the USA, no where near a monopoly and they will never monopolize.
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I don’t think anyone is arguing that Vail isn’t going to cut their park budget, we’re just saying that in the long term (talking 20-30 years here) there shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Parks don’t provide an immediate return on investment, it’s long term in the form of increased participation and better skier retention.
 
That’s probably because Keystones VP of Ops was the park manager at Park City for like 5 years and is the one the better builders and visionary's our there. So when you have that support from the top...

why keystone had its largest and arguably best pre season park last year right....[/quote]
 
14177200:galardogod said:
To add to eheath this isn’t necessarily limited to vail and large resorts, a very very small hill in maine , lost valley use to have an elite park, as in it rivaled Sunday river and sugarloaf (in quality not size) . And they where presumably spending a ton of money to maintain it , but over the last 4 years they have reduced it to the standard run down mountain park that is sketchy and not safe to say the least. Why? Because we don’t make up that large of the skiing market and it made them save money.
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In Lost Valley’s case I’m pretty sure they just didn’t have anyone with park knowhow running it for a while. You can build a great rail oriented park with a pretty small budget. It’s not like there rails just went away, last I was there a lot of them were just chillin by the tubing hill.

FWIW I heard they had a pretty big improvement last year with all the USASA comps
 
14177202:a_burger said:
I don’t think anyone is arguing that Vail isn’t going to cut their park budget, we’re just saying that in the long term (talking 20-30 years here) there shooting themselves in the foot by doing so.

Parks don’t provide an immediate return on investment, it’s long term in the form of increased participation and better skier retention.
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I think what you're saying is valid, but the numbers don't back up the overall statement. I don't think park skiing necessarily increases participation anymore than say kids ski racing, I'd say ski schools are the strongest factor for increasing participation, which I think has been working. We're in a weird year now, but looking as the last couple years, skiing is growing as a recreational sport and park skiing is declining at the same time. Many people here seem to think park skiing has some huge role in the ski industry and that's just not true at all. I dont agree with Vail shooting themselves in the foot over cutting budgets for parks, they would be just fine with no terrain parks at any of their resorts. Does this mean every park will disappear tomorrow? No, but don't be surprised if you see big companies like Vail pushing terrain parks out of their resorts in the next 5-10 years.
 
14177206:SkiBum. said:
That’s probably because Keystones VP of Ops was the park manager at Park City for like 5 years and is the one the better builders and visionary's our there. So when you have that support from the top...

why keystone had its largest and arguably best pre season park last year right....
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Who are you speaking of? Just curious
 
14177208:eheath said:
I think what you're saying is valid, but the numbers don't back up the overall statement. I don't think park skiing necessarily increases participation anymore than say kids ski racing, I'd say ski schools are the strongest factor for increasing participation, which I think has been working. We're in a weird year now, but looking as the last couple years, skiing is growing as a recreational sport and park skiing is declining at the same time. Many people here seem to think park skiing has some huge role in the ski industry and that's just not true at all. I dont agree with Vail shooting themselves in the foot over cutting budgets for parks, they would be just fine with no terrain parks at any of their resorts. Does this mean every park will disappear tomorrow? No, but don't be surprised if you see big companies like Vail pushing terrain parks out of their resorts in the next 5-10 years.
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Real talk are there any numbers that quantify terrain park usage? I wanna see them if so, it’s pretty much impossible to find any sort of data on that. I tried a time lapse survey a year or two ago in one of our parks but that was more about user flow vs usage.

Because I can’t find any numbers on that I’m mostly basing this off personal experience. I know a lot of racer kids who drop the sport after highschool or college, or at the very least go much less often.
 
14177215:a_burger said:
Real talk are there any numbers that quantify terrain park usage? I wanna see them if so, it’s pretty much impossible to find any sort of data on that. I tried a time lapse survey a year or two ago in one of our parks but that was more about user flow vs usage.

Because I can’t find any numbers on that I’m mostly basing this off personal experience. I know a lot of racer kids who drop the sport after highschool or college, or at the very least go much less often.
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I'm basing my statements off of how much money is spent within park skiing, advertising, events, retails etc is all down for park skiing related measurements, meanwhile in utah we break our skier day record every year. Recreational skiing is more popular than ever and park skiing is probably about as popular as it was in the early 2000s, maybe it never really got that much more popular in the last 20 years, but it seemed to have peaked around 08-12 and its been on a decline ever since
 
14177222:eheath said:
I'm basing my statements off of how much money is spent within park skiing, advertising, events, retails etc is all down for park skiing related measurements, meanwhile in utah we break our skier day record every year. Recreational skiing is more popular than ever and park skiing is probably about as popular as it was in the early 2000s, maybe it never really got that much more popular in the last 20 years, but it seemed to have peaked around 08-12 and its been on a decline ever since
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Word I get where your coming from, what I’m trying to say is that decrease in spending by the industry is kinda sketchy to link directly to participation. In terms of park building there has certainly been streamlining of the process which reduces costs without changing the product, I.e better snowmaking/grooming techniques, smarter park design (more focus on rails instead of a lot of big expensive jumps/pipes).

I don’t want to see it become a self fulfilling prophecy where budgets decrease -> park growth stops -> budgets decrease more

Like someone else said we can always setup PVC rails whenever but I’d be bummed if kids in the future had to join a team/club to hit parks at a resort, many probably wouldn’t even bother at that point
 
Honesty a lot of mountains other than the few that have massive early season contests, or need to have huge parks open asap will be almost business as usual.

Getting the mountain fully open is always a priority. Even some of the big park mountains have had small parks for a while, or parks in random places till they get more/make more snow.

There will be some impact but I don't think it will be as apocalyptic as people are making it seem.

Maybe Im just optimistic/naive.
 
14177222:eheath said:
I'm basing my statements off of how much money is spent within park skiing, advertising, events, retails etc is all down for park skiing related measurements, meanwhile in utah we break our skier day record every year. Recreational skiing is more popular than ever and park skiing is probably about as popular as it was in the early 2000s, maybe it never really got that much more popular in the last 20 years, but it seemed to have peaked around 08-12 and its been on a decline ever since
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Am I wrong that this doesn't seem specific to park skiing but action sports in general? I feel like as a kid growing up skateboarding was huge and super cool and now its kind of passe. I dont know if you can even buy a skateboard in target anymore?

I wonder why in general kids are less into action sports if so, they all just play fortnite and want to be tiktok famous now?
 
This is all interesting and makes me wonder about things locally. We have a medium sized mountain and thousands of people on the weekends but aren’t anywhere close to being a major ski destination.

We invest rather heavily in parks and it seems to me like our business model would be the first to cut down on parks or just delete them altogether yet we have 3 major ones every season. Not just like a tiny rail garden as one either, they’re all super legit and one has an XL jump line which rarely gets used and isnt even up the whole season due to construction.

I do think you’re under selling how valuable those parks can be, even as just a novelty. Kids get HYPED on the parks and will hound the park crews IG for build details and when they can expect features to be up. Hell, we have a cactus (probably just gave away location for LTC fans) that never gets jibbed, cause, how tf do you hit that haha but every season kids will legit drive hours from around the state just to see/ski it and the other amazing stuff the crew dreams up.

I think it’s safe to say that where I ride, the parks are about as much of a selling point as the terrain itself. Could we use 2 instead of 3 and save a little money? Sure, but I guarantee you management would not hear the end of it from a lot of people.

14177222:eheath said:
I'm basing my statements off of how much money is spent within park skiing, advertising, events, retails etc is all down for park skiing related measurements, meanwhile in utah we break our skier day record every year. Recreational skiing is more popular than ever and park skiing is probably about as popular as it was in the early 2000s, maybe it never really got that much more popular in the last 20 years, but it seemed to have peaked around 08-12 and its been on a decline ever since
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Wait till we see how long it takes to open fully this year. That will be a kick in the dick. On top of cost cutting and money saving the other huge dark horse is employee shortage. No Visas. I have no idea who’s gonna run lifts and flip burgers (if they have burgers).

Also rental housing in some of your main ski towns is gonna be next to impossible. Huge influx of new people moving into mountain towns within past few months. Why live in the city when you can live in your ski condo and work remote?
 
Does anyone know of anywhere I could find statements from vail addressing this in any way? I'll be getting a baker pass this year and have been considering getting an epic pass as well, for the sole reason that I want to be able to ski park when its not a pow day. My decision to buy an epic pass is completely contingent on there being a park at stevens and whistler.
 
14177251:TheMoostafian said:
Does anyone know of anywhere I could find statements from vail addressing this in any way? I'll be getting a baker pass this year and have been considering getting an epic pass as well, for the sole reason that I want to be able to ski park when its not a pow day. My decision to buy an epic pass is completely contingent on there being a park at stevens and whistler.
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I hope you're Canadian. I wouldn't count on the Canadian border being open to the US anytime soon.
 
14177251:TheMoostafian said:
Does anyone know of anywhere I could find statements from vail addressing this in any way? I'll be getting a baker pass this year and have been considering getting an epic pass as well, for the sole reason that I want to be able to ski park when its not a pow day. My decision to buy an epic pass is completely contingent on there being a park at stevens and whistler.
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I heard this from guys who work at PC, so I do not think there is a statement, nor will there be a statement I would imagine.
 
14177254:broken_skier0 said:
I hope you're Canadian. I wouldn't count on the Canadian border being open to the US anytime soon.
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Nah i wouldn't buy a baker pass if i was Canadian. Mostly concerned about stevens, but im keeping my fingers crossed for the possibility of a BC trip.
 
14177245:DesertStix said:
This is all interesting and makes me wonder about things locally. We have a medium sized mountain and thousands of people on the weekends but aren’t anywhere close to being a major ski destination.

We invest rather heavily in parks and it seems to me like our business model would be the first to cut down on parks or just delete them altogether yet we have 3 major ones every season. Not just like a tiny rail garden as one either, they’re all super legit and one has an XL jump line which rarely gets used and isnt even up the whole season due to construction.

I do think you’re under selling how valuable those parks can be, even as just a novelty. Kids get HYPED on the parks and will hound the park crews IG for build details and when they can expect features to be up. Hell, we have a cactus (probably just gave away location for LTC fans) that never gets jibbed, cause, how tf do you hit that haha but every season kids will legit drive hours from around the state just to see/ski it and the other amazing stuff the crew dreams up.

I think it’s safe to say that where I ride, the parks are about as much of a selling point as the terrain itself. Could we use 2 instead of 3 and save a little money? Sure, but I guarantee you management would not hear the end of it from a lot of people.
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Are you at snowbowl in Flagstaff?
 
14176806:galardogod said:
Can you expand on this? I’m actually curious.
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nationalize all ski resorts - make them all public and affordable - all power to all people (except vishnu)

81307794_1_x.jpg
 
Beav is just 1 park with small features this season. We're guaranteed to get 18-24" of snowmaking but that's where it stops. Staff has been cut about 40%.

The shitty part about all this is even if there's a ton of natural snow and the meme virus goes away, resorts wont be able to out build the staff they've hired and budgeted for. You'd have to hire and train new staff mid season which is a nightmare.
 
14177019:jakeordie said:
popcorn.gif

Resort town properties don't flip themselves.

How far from Gorgoza do you live?

This guy gets it. By 2030 resort skiing will be nothing like it was for the past 20 years.

http://woodwardparkcity.com
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lmfao maybe.

Their park setup is nothing special. Yeah they have decent jump lines but the run is so short. If they up their game for sure, as of last year all the real 1s were still at PC.
 
Resorts should just build 1 reasonably sized park with 3 kiddy jumps, 3 mid sized tables, and 3 large tables. And sprinkle on some of the low maintenance rails they used last year.

boom. Finished.

TERRAIN PARK ACCUALY
 
14177208:eheath said:
I think what you're saying is valid, but the numbers don't back up the overall statement. I don't think park skiing necessarily increases participation anymore than say kids ski racing, I'd say ski schools are the strongest factor for increasing participation, which I think has been working. We're in a weird year now, but looking as the last couple years, skiing is growing as a recreational sport and park skiing is declining at the same time. Many people here seem to think park skiing has some huge role in the ski industry and that's just not true at all. I dont agree with Vail shooting themselves in the foot over cutting budgets for parks, they would be just fine with no terrain parks at any of their resorts. Does this mean every park will disappear tomorrow? No, but don't be surprised if you see big companies like Vail pushing terrain parks out of their resorts in the next 5-10 years.
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Evan i feel like reading your posts you are doing my thinking for me.

the only thing you are more of than reasonable is handsome.
 
It’s a really cool novelty feature. Lotsa parks can say they throw an old car in the park or something like that but I’ve never heard of another cactus tube. The only problem is it’s never hit, like I’m not sure I saw a single person hit it last season and mostly because you have to be LTC to land anything on it. They set it up two seasons ago as a cannon with a decent drop on the other end and people just looked at it like “fuck that” I don’t remember what he did but LJ (I think) jibbed it the best in that episode.

We don’t necessarily have great park riders out here so it’s just passed by and pointed at by 11 year old kids and their dads when they snake their way through the park at 18 mph. Other than that though, I know you’re always talking about park crews and I don’t know too much about the business side of things but always thought our park crew (STP STAND UP) was top notch. Decent budget cause we’re owned by a mini conglomerate. They get plenty of cat use and can literally build whatever they want over three areas on the mountain. Dudes always look like they’re having so much fun at work and you’re not dealing with super touristy crowds or anything.

Could be worth taking a look at one season if you’re doing the nomad thing!

14177537:theabortionator said:
I like that cactus tube. Kinda makes me wanna make one. Even though it would dumb in my yard and a weird addition to any park I work in.
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