Ate shit on stupid little flat box my first run.

Mr.Huck

Mr.Huck

Active member
So it was this past Saturday; first run of the day. It was still pretty cold, the park had been groomed the night before and was basically set up like concrete. No snow the night before and no frost or ice on the rails or boxes. I go to slide a little flat box just to start warming up. I 90 on and, when I land, it feels like someone sprayed glue on the box. Both of my skis stop dead, I get crushed on the end of the box and my head smacked the ground. I am still feeling the effects of the whiplash I got from it. We checked out a different park at the same mountain a few minutes later and the boxes there were the same way. My guys could actually side step up a box that had a slight down to it.

Point. When I looked at the surface of the HDPE boxes, they looked really dry. I was thinking that cold and dry overnight dries out the top of the HDPE. If I get bored I might try to come up with a spray that park crews could hit the tops of the boxes with to make them slide right on days like this or just as a precaution. Personally I'd like to figure out what conditions cause this, so I know not to try hitting a box again when they are like this.

Anyone ever see boxes get like this? If so, what do you think made them like that?
 
thats how i broke my arm this year, i had been hitting this box for a bit and it seemed a bit sticky (it looked kinda fucked too)...thinking it was me i decided to just giver and ended up catching super bad and falling a few feet to ice
 
Yup, and it sucks, especially if the boxes are higher off the ground. Snow does help but only for a little bit. At our local hill it gets so bad sometimes you can't even 50 50 the huge boxes because they are so sticky, try actually sliding/tricking them! Anywho I don't see why people can't just use the same material that nice parks use, let me know if you find a way because I work at our local hill sometime and would love to cure the problem of the glue boxes.
 
A lot of resorts can't use the nicer/better material due to the pricing of it. Management doesn't want to put the money into the parks, would rather have the money go towards something else. Our top sheet for a 4x8 sheet costs about 120 for a 1/4 inch thick piece. Go to 1/2 inch for what a lot of resorts use, your doubled that about.
 
One time it was dumping freezing rain, and there was at least an inch of ice everywhere. Like even the vertical poles of the chairs and stuff. There was like 2 inches on the boxes, so the park didnt even open. My friend and I ended up playing makeshift hockey on a flat spot with our skis on and using our poles as sticks.
 
Actually, in this case, it was specifically the HDPE. We could walk straight down the box with our skis on. We weren't even touching the coping.

A metal rail just below the box was sliding great. So whatever it was it only seemed to be effecting the HDPE. We tried throwing some snow on it; that didn't seem to do anything. I agree that water would help, but if you just sprayed the boxes with water early in the morning, they would probably ice up. The more people slide them, the wetter they get and the better they slide, so the water must have to kind of soak in a little.

As to the Colorado comment, this was in Vail. I was actually thinking that Colorado's dry climate might have had something to do with it; maybe not based on the responses here.

At Woodward at Copper, they spray their dryslope with a mixture of water and silicone. Not sure how environmentally friendly that would be, but it might work for HDPE. It's a thought anyway. Whatever you spray on would have to have a pretty low freezing point.

Solution would be to sleep in and wait for dumbasses like me to guinea the boxes and wreck themselves until the boxes slide right. I'd rather see a spray though.
 
yea i agree, i dontthink ive ever had a problem with sticky park rails.
also i think dry and cold days affect hdpe...im usualy more careful to hit stuff on cold/dry days than more mild ones.
 
ive noticed the opposite. the butterboxs at our hill seem to get super sticky the WARMER it is out.
 
Some sort of spray lubircant would be nice. Just as your bases dry out, I am sure that HDPE probably dries out too.

Maybe you could double up and make it a product for rails to protect them from rusting too.

I think wd-40 would work pretty well?

Idk.
 
I love little pink trolls.

TrollNakedPinkHair.jpg

 
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