Cardrona Parks NZ

H

HeathR

Active member
What did everyone think of last years park? Anything you want to see for this season?

Always needed some good medium jumps but there was no where to build them.

The dream

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is getting close to reality...

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The boys have been moving a serious amount of dirt to turn old jump 4 into a medium triple line. Time to start praying for some snow!
 
Cardrona parks needs to build some new, well constructed rails of proper dimensions. Think along the line of SPNZ rails.

Cardrona NZ needs to stop putting the same rails in the same place year in year out and change it up a little. Butter boxes don't go in an intermediate rail line. They go in the beginner park. So do 5ft flat boxes.

There are far too many down rails, think of something else. The features are to close together, resulting in ruts, corrugations and skier/rider traffic jams. The potential to be great is there, just never met.

Please just built some lips on that aren't so damn skinny. They seriously hamper what you can do onto a rail.

Jumps are usually very good. The close out multi-feature last year was great, so was the big flat down. The long plastic tube is pretty good fun.

May seem like a lot of negative stuff, but there is potential at Cardrona to be absolutely fucking amazing. Whether it is staff numbers or cost that are sometimes a set back I don't know, but the potential is there. Look forward to it being great this season.

New jump line was a selling point for me getting a pass this year.
 
It's so they can mountain board on them in the summer. But really it saves a ton of snow. If you don't have to build the knuckles completely out of snow you can get a jump line open so much faster and save a ton of money in snowmaking. Only downside is you're kinds of stuck with your placement but a lot of times people build the same jump line in the same spot every year.

Same concept as the dirt work for a pipe.
 
No worries about the negativity. Always appreciate feedback either way.

Unfortunately some of those things can't really be fixed. I don't think most people realize that the whole upper rail line is dirt works. There is no snowmaking in the upper part of the park either. All those rail pads are dirt. This makes it really hard to be creative or space things out better. The steepness of the run also creates the corrugations because people have to loose so much speed between features. Having the dirt works for the rails is a blessing and a curse. Its also the reason you see many of the features set up in the same place. The longer rails can only fit in a few spots and the shorter rails get stuck on the small pads. Thats part of the reason there are really short features in the park. Some of the pads don't have room for anything longer. Normally you would build the rail pad to the rail but we have to fit the rails to the pads. In a thin year the rail legs are actually sitting on the dirt.

Well thats all my excuses. Wider lips is easy unless its a spot where its a tight squeeze with the cat. Hoping to setup some more plaza style features this year and get some bigger rails into the lower section. You might get your wish about SPNZ rails in a literal sense. Their stock of rails was in pretty bad disrepair but look out for a few at Cardies this year.
 
It costs a lot of money and then you have no flexibility. For places with lots of snowmaking or natural snow it doesn't make sense. Parks are constantly evolving so its hard when you have something permanent. At Cardrona there is not enough snow or snowmaking to do it without dirt works. Lots of mountains are also located on protected land or ecologically sensitive areas.
 
I don't know if it's still the case but I remember Stowe being located in a park preserve of some sort and not being able to do any dirt work for the halfpipe. Honestly might be the only 100% snow pipe in the east.

 
Perisher is located in Australia. Australia gets less snow than NZ, but it's on protected land which would explain it, although the whole you need to change your jumps i think is kind of stupid, a jump is a jump if you do the maths you can create a perfect jump it's not like a rail were people get bored of the same shit but ehh charles beckinsile does a great job with the limited resources
 
Jumps were on point last year and the medium is gonna make it a much more well rounded park. I remember there being no real in between step from the small line kickers to the big ones. (think they only had 1 med kicker, correct me if im wrong)
 
Jumps design actually changes quite a bit over time. Look at jumps 10 years ago. Most jumps were step downs with takeoffs around 20 degrees. The takeoffs were also less then a cat wide. What is considered a good jump now is a hybrid step over style jump that is at least a cat and a half wide. Take off angles are getting to be around 30 degrees. This means you need a much taller, steeper and wider landing. The dirt works for the big triple line at Cardrona are a good example. It takes 20 feet of snow on top top of the dirt plus a ton on the sides. The dirt mounds are also too close together for how big the jumps have gotten.

Despite this I am still pumped on all the dirt works Cardrona has. Its what makes the parks work.
 
I see what you're saying dude but consider how much the front valley park changes throughout the season. They could do it for Leichardt for sure but I suspect what you said about it being protected land or w/e would be an issue - remember how much people spit chips over the tree/rocks on FV being removed last year? Jesus christ, could you imagine their reaction from purpose building jumps into a run?
 
wachusett had to get rid of their pipe because environmentalists were not cool with all the dirt build they did over the summer. an all snow pipe would take so much snow and consistent cold temps, and we get neither here in massachusetts so wa is pipe- less now. not a big problem, the pipe always turned to shit after the first thaw freeze cycle, and now they can put more time and money into the park.
 
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