New Night Park coming to So. VT!

Huck_Norris

Active member
Hey all. Been a while since I've checked in, life has been insane in so many ways (Snwbrdmilf & I had a baby and bought a house!) but I've got a really cool development to share with you all.

As you may know, I've been the Ops Director at Magic Mountain in VT since the new ownership took over 5 years ago, and we've been changing a TON of stuff since then. Literally millions invested in improvements, blah blah blah... Getting to the point, last year we attempted to run a small night park next to our tubing park, with limited success for a lot of reasons- all of which we are addressing this year in a BIG way.

Essentially we're doing away with tubing, and putting some money behind turning the tube park area into a slopestyle-type park that will be *directly* under our newly revamped and super bright LED lighting. The steepness of the area and the rollovers in there made it really hard to use for tubing, but that will serve PERFECTLY for a choose-your-own-adventure mini slopestyle format with the features arranged into the rollers.

The area is served by a handle tow, and is about 600' of vertical. We hope to run it until at least 8pm Fridays & Saturdays and for the first time ever we will have a dedicated maintenance team to ensure everything stays legit. We even hope to host some quality rail jams and competitions, but those details are still a ways off.

We're a total mom & pop mountain, but with Dark Sky regs in VT being what they are, the fact that we are grandfathered in for night lights because of our tubing operations is HUGE- installing new ones is essentially impossible. There are no other night skiing offerings around, and while this is a smaller area it should be a complete blast- hot lapping a fun little park that's well lit and fully visible from the bar is going to be awesome. I really hope we can get some passholders from the other bigger resorts nearby (Stratton, Okemo, Bromley, Killington, Mt. Snow etc.) to come over once their lifts stop spinning. We will never be Carinthia, but we can make this area the coolest little after-hours session park in the area and if people regularly come, we can keep building it better & better ever year.

Here's a pic of the area I'm talking about for visual refrence.

969027.jpeg

The area off to the right is where it *used to be* but the new location is where the grass is striped out with the disc golf basket in the middle. The handle tow shown to the right is also being moved out of there, so that whole area will be much cleaner.

We will be offering a park-only pass FYI, and I really hope to see an overwhelming amount of NS die cuts getting on that handle tow.

Feel free to AMA, I will try to check back in periodically, and share pics of progress as it happens. Cheers!!
 
Yoooo great to see you back here and congrats on the baby! I'll definitely be checking this out this winter sounds like a ton of fun
 
Skiing needs more skatepark type environments like this. Night skiing and lapping a small park is a great night. 8 pm might be to early of a closing time though.
 
congratulations on the baby and house!!

the night park sounds amazing. unfortunately it's not super quick or easy for me to get to Magic (the mtn itself is super dope too) but i'm definitely going to try to get there next season as much as i can. keep this thread updated!
 
14160424:r00kie said:
Skiing needs more skatepark type environments like this. Night skiing and lapping a small park is a great night. 8 pm might be to early of a closing time though.

Yeah I am pushing for later but the best I could negotiate to start off with was 8. If it's successful enough though, we could afford to allocate more cash to pay staff/patrol to stay later. I really think it'll do well and am fine with starting out easy and working our way up to the final vision... Compromises are often the only way to get the ball rolling and we aren't exactly working with Vail-type funding.

Even in the "just ok" area we had last year, skiers had a blast fast-lapping it though. You can hit features literally hundreds of times in a few hours because you only spend like 30 seconds on the lift. I know we can do way better. Now that the boss has signed off on a real deal park in the ideal location, we can build it legitimately instead of just running with whatever we had time left over for. I've got a guy out in the parking lot right now refurbishing features, so it's nice to be getting after it this early.

It also gives us the advantage of hard data on how many people are buying the park-only pass, which will help me budget and justify future expenditures towards new features or other improvements- of which I have many planned. I'm trying to get F&B to use the old tubing storage shed as a bar/bbq food serving area and if that pans out it'll be really nice for the park patrons and spectators. I told the bar manager we'd make millions if we put Pizza Rolls for sale at the park lol so we'll see if they get onboard.
 
14160444:Huck_Norris said:
Yeah I am pushing for later but the best I could negotiate to start off with was 8. If it's successful enough though, we could afford to allocate more cash to pay staff/patrol to stay later. I really think it'll do well and am fine with starting out easy and working our way up to the final vision... Compromises are often the only way to get the ball rolling and we aren't exactly working with Vail-type funding.

Even in the "just ok" area we had last year, skiers had a blast fast-lapping it though. You can hit features literally hundreds of times in a few hours because you only spend like 30 seconds on the lift. I know we can do way better. Now that the boss has signed off on a real deal park in the ideal location, we can build it legitimately instead of just running with whatever we had time left over for. I've got a guy out in the parking lot right now refurbishing features, so it's nice to be getting after it this early.

It also gives us the advantage of hard data on how many people are buying the park-only pass, which will help me budget and justify future expenditures towards new features or other improvements- of which I have many planned. I'm trying to get F&B to use the old tubing storage shed as a bar/bbq food serving area and if that pans out it'll be really nice for the park patrons and spectators. I told the bar manager we'd make millions if we put Pizza Rolls for sale at the park lol so we'll see if they get onboard.

Aah, got to love negotiation. Maybe if there is still a crowd at 8 the bosses will keep things going later.
 
Friggen hyped!

Smaller settings and extended hours are going to be key for resorts and snowsports to make it through this winter I think.
 
Super cool! I’m in southern nh. I will definitely come by and check it out this year. More places need to do stuff like this for us park dudes.
 
topic:Huck_Norris said:
Hey all. Been a while since I've checked in, life has been insane in so many ways (Snwbrdmilf & I had a baby and bought a house!) but I've got a really cool development to share with you all.

As you may know, I've been the Ops Director at Magic Mountain in VT since the new ownership took over 5 years ago, and we've been changing a TON of stuff since then. Literally millions invested in improvements, blah blah blah... Getting to the point, last year we attempted to run a small night park next to our tubing park, with limited success for a lot of reasons- all of which we are addressing this year in a BIG way.

Essentially we're doing away with tubing, and putting some money behind turning the tube park area into a slopestyle-type park that will be *directly* under our newly revamped and super bright LED lighting. The steepness of the area and the rollovers in there made it really hard to use for tubing, but that will serve PERFECTLY for a choose-your-own-adventure mini slopestyle format with the features arranged into the rollers.

The area is served by a handle tow, and is about 600' of vertical. We hope to run it until at least 8pm Fridays & Saturdays and for the first time ever we will have a dedicated maintenance team to ensure everything stays legit. We even hope to host some quality rail jams and competitions, but those details are still a ways off.

We're a total mom & pop mountain, but with Dark Sky regs in VT being what they are, the fact that we are grandfathered in for night lights because of our tubing operations is HUGE- installing new ones is essentially impossible. There are no other night skiing offerings around, and while this is a smaller area it should be a complete blast- hot lapping a fun little park that's well lit and fully visible from the bar is going to be awesome. I really hope we can get some passholders from the other bigger resorts nearby (Stratton, Okemo, Bromley, Killington, Mt. Snow etc.) to come over once their lifts stop spinning. We will never be Carinthia, but we can make this area the coolest little after-hours session park in the area and if people regularly come, we can keep building it better & better ever year.

Here's a pic of the area I'm talking about for visual refrence.

View attachment 969027

The area off to the right is where it *used to be* but the new location is where the grass is striped out with the disc golf basket in the middle. The handle tow shown to the right is also being moved out of there, so that whole area will be much cleaner.

We will be offering a park-only pass FYI, and I really hope to see an overwhelming amount of NS die cuts getting on that handle tow.

Feel free to AMA, I will try to check back in periodically, and share pics of progress as it happens. Cheers!!

This is hype!
 
I really needed this in my life. I live in the area and will for sure be there constantly, I cannot wait to take tow rope laps not to mention night skiing!
 
2 hours from me, but those rapid rate laps are gonna be worth the drive here and there for sure. Lets make a cool event happen!
 
14161168:-Dan said:
2 hours from me, but those rapid rate laps are gonna be worth the drive here and there for sure. Lets make a cool event happen!

Don't you threaten ME with a good time, I'll triple dog dare ya!

Also to any event planners that want to get the ball rolling for an event, hmu. Private rentals we can definitely do, and I would love to host a few night rail jams throughout the winter too. I'm trying to get pricing for rental of the whole park now, and it should be pretty reasonable- I'll share that when I get it, as I can already smell an NS crowdfunding campaign coming.
 
14161358:Huck_Norris said:
Don't you threaten ME with a good time, I'll triple dog dare ya!

Also to any event planners that want to get the ball rolling for an event, hmu. Private rentals we can definitely do, and I would love to host a few night rail jams throughout the winter too. I'm trying to get pricing for rental of the whole park now, and it should be pretty reasonable- I'll share that when I get it, as I can already smell an NS crowdfunding campaign coming.

We should get an NS meet up going there too some night, this is exactly the opportunity people have been waiting for to get together and meet each other!
 
14161362:little1337 said:
We should get an NS meet up going there too some night, this is exactly the opportunity people have been waiting for to get together and meet each other!

It's perfect for it.

Pretty centrally located, not going to be very expensive and should be a really fun spot. Playing HORSE would be a blast on a short run like that.
 
We out there

Grinding

Welding

Painting

Stripping screws

Swearing

**eagle screech**

**This post was edited on Aug 31st 2020 at 3:11:29pm
 
14169725:Huck_Norris said:
We out there

Grinding

Welding

Painting

Stripping screws

Swearing

**eagle screech**

**This post was edited on Aug 31st 2020 at 3:11:29pm

Hell yeah! Doin the lords work
 
Another cool update: We had a helicopter crash here while installing the lift in '61 and the wreckage has just been out in the woods ever since. We went up with an excavator, cut out the rotor shaft and carried it to the bottom where we are going to integrate it into some kind of rainbow feature.

Also I pulled our old halfpipe dragon out of the woods and we are making it into a bar with beer taps and lighting.

Hope you are all getting jacked up to do some night park skiing, I am getting more excited by the day!

**This post was edited on Nov 16th 2020 at 6:43:49am
 
14190182:Huck_Norris said:
Another cool update: We had a helicopter crash here while installing the lift in '61 and the wreckage has just been out in the woods ever since. We went up with an excavator, cut out the rotor shaft and carried it to the bottom where we are going to integrate it into some kind of rainbow feature.

Also I pulled Jake Burton's old halfpipe dragon out of the woods and we are making it into a bar with beer taps and lighting.

Hope you are all getting jacked up to do some night park skiing, I am getting more excited by the day!

Old pipe dragons are super cool. Better as a bar than cutting a pipe these days.

Posts some pics of things.
 
14190182:Huck_Norris said:
Another cool update: We had a helicopter crash here while installing the lift in '61 and the wreckage has just been out in the woods ever since. We went up with an excavator, cut out the rotor shaft and carried it to the bottom where we are going to integrate it into some kind of rainbow feature.

Also I pulled Jake Burton's old halfpipe dragon out of the woods and we are making it into a bar with beer taps and lighting.

Hope you are all getting jacked up to do some night park skiing, I am getting more excited by the day!

S I C K
 
14190248:TheHamburglar said:
Fuckin hyped! 40 minutes from my place! How much is it gonna cost per night just curious?

I haven’t heard what the after dark ticket will be but I’m sure it’ll be reasonable, affordability is kind of our thing. I’ll pass along rates once I hear the final.

Here’s that rotor shaft from the heli wreckage, it will likely be the center support for a rainbow of some kind.

977861.jpeg

And here is the pipe dragon bar I’m working on.

977867.jpeg

Going to sit pretty much how it is in this picture, but I’ve got to put feet on it, Remove all the hydraulic bracketry for a wood slab top, plexi front with underlighting for the augers and that far side is going to get boxed out for taps and to hold a few pony kegs, cold plate and CO2. Fresh paint, some diamond plate and a few battery LED strips and we’re PARTYING boys & girls!
 
It has begun!

We started making snow in the park, won’t be long now. Talking with the big boss, and I told him I wanted to roll terrain park as soon as it has enough snow- well out in front of the rest of the operation. He’s down, so this party may get started soon!
 
MOM START THE ROPE TOW!! Grew up lapping a rope tow at night and had some of the best memories of skiing doing it. Hyped for this!
 
Paint stage is probably the most satisfying, they look soooooo shiny and clean! 4 in this batch with paint curing in the hot shop for the weekend, more this week I’ll share as we work.

[video]https://www.newschoolers.com/videos/watch/981125/trim-E9659A51-0FE0-45D1-9A0D-C39C38C2523D-MOV[/video]

Ordering up a bunch of color shift LED strips too, definitely going to light up our skatelite surfaces and under the tables etc.

I seriously hope you are all getting hyped to come and enjoy this place, it’s going to be so freakin fun!
 
Build is tomorrow, hope to see some of you this weekend! We just got smashed with a 30” dump so the whole mountain should be open.
 
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