Alright. So this is a dicussion that comes up a lot in various forms.
One important thing is that every mountain is different. Sugarbush could have a plaza setup or mammoth could have a booter that are each fucking perfectly built but might be a terrible feature at a small mtn with a beginner park cliental.
2 ways this can become an issue is that people like to hype up bigger features. Being somebody who has asked, and seen mtns ask, threads about this, most people or at least the mob will push for bigger features. Nobody will ask for more down or flat rails. It's a z tube, s rail, dfdfd, 50'down rail. Loop de loop elbow left donkey tube.
Sure I'm exaggerating slightly but I've seen it a bunch and the features that are hit a ton at those mtns are the mellow flat and down rails. People hiking them with friends getting spins on and off.
In the flip side of this sometimes you have the park crew doing the same. Building features that look sick af, attract attention, but maybe nobody at the mtn or only a small percentage are actually good enough to hit.
I mean let's be honest, you don't see many people sharing the pictures of the new baby box/rail line at a mtn the way they would a perfectly sculpted 65' booter.
Mountains in general are investing heavily in beginner parks thwae days though. Thwre qas a point where a lot of mtns had only a few features. Sometimes they were fucking big. You had to go from, "I've never hit a rail" to "i guess ill send it on that 20' single tube set high because the only other rail is an s rail or super steep rainbow rail borderline pole jam entry.
I'm not sure if it was the growth of the sport, savage will to huck it, but the sport still grew at those places in those periods. Still a huge barrier for entry and kept a lot of people from ever hitting a rail.
Anyway things are changing, some mtns are still building shit too big. Some haven't built enough new stuff and just have the older larger features. I remember when a 16' flat box was a beginner feature. Sure they arent necessarily wrong. But instead of that 16'er set 1.5' high were seeing 8-12' features set nuch lower. Flat boxes, up boxes, dance floors, 6" flat bars, short fatty tubes, etc. This makes going from my first feature, to hitting medium size single tube down and flat rails way smoother. There a linear progression and that can help keep people motivated as they hit that down rail for the first time, and then set their eyes on the bigger one. Keep people from getting broke off, and keep things fun.
At northstar we had a pretty killer small park. Sometimes we'd squad up and relearn tricks, learn new tricks, or try and huck stupidly big tricks on baby features. It was actually super fun.
I'm going to be building some smaller boxes and rails for Crystal this off season. Pretty stoked because our smallest box is 16' maybe bigger.
The biggest thing is figuring out the demographic, figuring out the goal of where you want the park to go even in the short term(a couple of seasons) and then build features that the better riders can enjoy but also progress the newer ones and get those people on the outside of the ropeline to start coming in.
Good kids can still have fun on a 20' flat rail or down rail. I remember sugarbush saying they weren't going to build any jumps over 30 or 35 because they didnt need to, and honestly they really didn't.
Big park features can be kind of like night skiing. It's great to have the option in various regions, but not every mtn needs it.
Some places have a low vert, and shitty snow and park is the only draw. Thise places might build more rowdy parks even if the guests suck, and in many of those cases the locals start to get pretty good. At a 3k mountain with sick lines, a big park might not be the move. You have so many other options. You dont need to hit that crazy rail contraption ever.
I'm a big believer in the challenge rail from time to time though. Sometimes even if most of your features are pretty tame it's cool to put in that combo that even if not hit a ton gives people that optuon to try to conquer it. Or get a sick trick through it. This could be as simple as two boxes or the bigger, z tube to dfd donkey tube festures.
Idk at the end of the day it will never be completely perfect, there will always be haters even if it was, and all you can do is make the best of your resources to make the most fun park that works for a bunch of your guests.
park crew why you gotta do that
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