MINNESOTA HELP

414.

414.

Active member
I'm going to be transferring to the U of M next semester, and will be moving to Minneapolis January 1st. I'm wondering if any local hills have a deal for students and if so which is the best? I'm coming from Milwaukee and haven't ridden outside of Wisconsin, your help is appreciated. I've heard some good things about Hyland, but that's about it.

Thanks in advance guys.
 
i looked and really found no good info, all i could find was their season pass full prices.
 
I think troll and welch both have student passes for $99. Troll is your best bet but its a little over an hour from the UofM campus and traffic depending on the time of day can be a bitch. I'd get a pass to hyland if you can pay their ridiculous price or one to elm creek. Buck Hill sucks.

Hylands got a new $15 ticket for open-noon on tuesdays and thursdays, that's what I'm going to try to do. After 3:00 is a clusterfuck, so try to schedule your classes so you have a couple late mornings - early afternoons off a week.
 
thanks for the help guys, guess i'll just have to pay for a ticket each time to Hyland.
 
here's a full list of the areas in the metro area with my opinion on them

Trollhaugen - I've heard good things

Wild Mountain - Ehhhh... fun preseason.

Hyland Hills - Fun but super crowded and rutted out

Elm Creek - Haven't been there, smaller place but fun

Afton Alps - A lot of fun. Decent variety. Bigger for a metro area hill

Buck Hill - Blows

Welch Village - Blows
 
Afton and Troll are my favorites. You really can't beat trolls $99 pass, and it's really not that far of a drive. It's just under an hour for my friend who lives in minneapolis and goes to the U. Well worth it with all the money you'd be saving on tickets imo.
 
thanks for the info! i'll definitely have to check both out. i plan on riding at least once a week, so a $99 pass would be great.
 
Troll - a Jolly affairWild - intense park in the reg seas

hyland - what he said

elm - looks like a ton of fun, just a lot of features and jumps in a small area, I assume insane ruts

Afton - A+

Buck - FCO (for chodes only)

Welch - I work there but It's not not not a good place for park, no way.
 
buck hill has gotten better, their park was fun two days ago even with the shitty snow... it should be good this year, and to whoever complains about it sucking, you can take a shovel and make shit yourself there.
 
my buddy is selling his elm creek pass, i'm sure he'd give you a deal on it. elm is super fun to mess around at. not too far from the U and less crowded than hyland. the hill is like two feet tall but they always have it loaded with rails!

https://www.newschoolers.com/ns/forums/readthread/thread_id/715561/

 
buck hill has the worst fucking snow making unless you race. they always have. they use way too much water. the place is a sheet of ice regardless of temperature. 25 degrees? ice. 35 degrees? ice.
 
yah i have been skiing there for 6 years now, it is not like that at all. it pretty much like any other man made snow around...
 
That's the thing... they can't even fucking take a shovel and make a lip onto things. They are terrible at park designing and downright lazy.

As a Buck Hill local, I can vouch for the snow sucking all of the time. The landings are so icy that your feet hurt from landing on the concrete like snow. The whole hill is a no fall zone unless you want to slide on your back for 50 feet.
 
yah well whatever i enjoy working on the park every day, but im just wierd like that, if you dont like it leave. there are 8 other hills you can go to.
 
THIS. i went there when it was super warm last year (40ish degrees) and the place was somehow still an absolute disaster. imagine a skating rink with some melted water on top.

Went to afton the next day and it was super fun spring slush.

anyway the park crew at buck seems to have the occasional interesting idea which is rendered completely useless by the terrible conditions.
 
i can agree with this, they had a few cool things setup when i went a couple times last year. at least they can setup a legit down rail....HYLAND
 
I went to go hit the black handrail at hyland with normal speed and almost gapped the entire thing. Otherwise it's not completely horrible
 
well this is all discouraging, I'm riding there this winter for the first full season (got a pass) as it is the closest to my school and i wanted to cut gas costs. I've been there 3 days this season and its been really fun, liked the features and no complaints about the snow, does it really get that icy? what about there jumps are the no-fall zones as well?
 
Perhaps I was a little too critical of them. It is fairly icy, but now that we have natural snow it should be a lot better. Unfortunately the jumps get pretty rutted out usually and those landings get icy. Buck Hill is my home hill, an although it sucks sometimes, they have some good setups most of the time and there's always opportunities to have fun there. It just gets frustrating when the park crew doesn't maintain features, bu it seems that they're fixing things more now. By no means did you waste your money IMO.
 
Trollhaugen is the most fun spot around, in terms of vibe/attention paid to their park.

Welch has a good college deal and, IMO fun "terrain" compared to the other hills around here. Once it's all snowed in, if you've got a wandering eye, you can find some fun 'natural' (sometimes that means a snow pile that they left untouched) features to get funky on.

Welch's downfall is their asinine refusal to embrace park skiing. I have more fun trying to slide fallen tree branches than I do their boxes/rails.
 
This. Elm I the place if you want to get good at rails and have a ton of fun with original features that are maintained well. Also $15 lift tickets if $5 tickets with a Hyland pass!
 
I went to Troll yesterday, and they have a really sick park. All of the rails are really buttery, and features are just set up well.

Kinda BS that it's $30 bucks though.
 
Trollhaugen, Wild, Welch, and Afton (with some limitations) all have pretty reasonable college season passes, $99-130 ish, though you might be running out of time to get some of them. Buck and Hyland are expensive as hell. Hyland is only worth it if you can ski midday/midweek, otherwise it's totally overrun by school age kids. Welch has no park to speak of. Troll and Wild are you two best bets really, only about an hour from the cities, and cheap with pretty solid parks. I went Wild this year, but I wish I woulda done Troll.
 
If it takes you 1.5 hours to get to troll from mpls you drive like a fucking scared little asian woman and there's no way you would make spirit in less than 2 driving like that.
 
My friend who lives in Mpls (goes to the U) gets there in just under an hour taking 36 almost to stillwater, north on manning, east on 97? then north on 95 and cross the river at osceola.
 
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