The Disappearance of Pipe- what happened?

Turkelton

Turkelton

Active member
I read an article in the Zurcher Zeitung a few weeks ago about the BEO and it got me thinking about the 3 remaining public pipes, where have the pipes gone?

Switzerland currently only has 3 public pipes left that are shaped and maintained. Saas Fee, Laax and Davos.

Arosa used to have a stellar pipe, on the other side of Graubunden to Davos and Laax, shaped everyday. It used to hold the FIS snowboard world cup final, with people like the infamous Tore Holvik come there to get their dub 10's down. Last season, I arrived there for a 4 day trip with my family in mid December.Not too much snow, but a nice base and a good pow day. The pipe is pre built, but was chopped and icy and nothing built. I thought it would be there by February like their jumps which you would have seen in "Turd on the Run" by TJ Schiller and Arosa has a nice little park.

I went up there with a friend in mid March of 2013, coming to shred some new snow and park. We went over to the park about 11, and the pipe is gone. It's just ice blocks formed where the pipe would be, basically a shell of what it was. Big mounds of snow basically used then to drop into a hip and a box. The multimillion machines for cutting the pipe and snowblowers all pushed away behind the Weisshorn Bahn. Never used once that season.

Davos on the Jakobshorn used to have a mini pipe two years ago, never really shaped, but now that's gone. It's pipe at the bottom last year was only shaped for the Davos O'Neill Evolution and left to melt at 800m.

Flumserberg in the 1990's and early 2000's till about 2006 had the nearest pipe to Zurich. That's a thing of the past, gone alongside when their park was almost good.

Grindelwald in the Jungfrau region, one of the largest ski resorts in the county with great lifts, great terrain and the base for a great pipe. That's basically ended. This is what the former "superpipe" looks like (photo from 2 seasons ago with better snow and colder temperatures than this year, unshaped).

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There used to be the Audi Open for pipe in Grindelwald, now stopped because the pipe isn't looked after.

It seems as though most resorts in the world seem to be focussing less and less on pipe shaping (Maybe apart from Flachauwinkl in Austria which just built its second pipe). Less kids want to get air in the pipe as now they'd have to travel longer or put up with worse conditions than Sochi had for snowboarding. How are kids supposed to see if they like Pipe if they can't get up the wall thanks to 15ft high bumps and unshaped vert?

So NS, what's happened to the era of at least a mini pipe at every mountain and even some monsters? Even the minis are gone. Will we see this one day happen to the bigger kickers at our mountain as well?

I want to see the worldwide spread of this so please post about and pics on what's happening. You must've noticed it

 
People would ski down the middle and make it unenjoyable for everyone. Also, people get hurt easier in pipes and they're extremely hard to make and maintain- cost wasn't worth it at all for the majority of hills.
 
Off topic: What the fuck is up with the purple names suddenly appearing all over NS??? Are they aliens??
 
This isn't really news. Pipes started disappearing about a decade ago, at least in North America.

I blame rails. When parks first started, pipes were small, hand dug, and both jumps and pipes were ghetto. When skiers started to get into the park was around the same time that parks started getting good... pipe cutters, proper jumps, and the odd rail. I'd say around the same time that the bigger pipe cutters started coming around rails were becoming more popular and parks started putting in a lot more rails in their parks than we saw in the past. Rails are lower impact for the rider and way cheaper to build and maintain over time compared to the pipe. Combine those two things and you have pipes that aren't getting the rider traffic necessary for ski hills to justify the cost of keeping a well maintained pipe, so they just scrapped it, and only a minority complained.

There have been only two properly maintained half pipes in Western Canada since 2003 or so (COP in Calgary and Blackcomb), excluding Summit County, Western USA is very similar in their lack of pipes, I can't even tell you where the closest maintained pipe in the PNW is (does Schweitzer have a well maintained pipe?)

 
it's a shame, but pipes are expensive and need lots of snow and maintenance, and then they're STILL in bad shape half the damn year

i speculate that resorts are thinking more and more that it's just not worth the time and money, even for "we have a super pipe!" advertising bragging rights

in my opinion people should embrace the mini pipe. less snow and maintenance and mere mortals like me can actually do tricks above the lip on the damn things!
 
Didn't read anything but the title, but here is the answer to your questions, is quick and simple...

To expensive and not enough use.
 
Mt Hood Meadows has a pipe, but they do not blow snow to fill it in, and they won't harvest snow for it from other locations. It has not been cut this year.
 
i'd still have a mini pipe over a moguls course though. And I don't even ski park that much anymore.
 
It's pretty simple: pipes are insanely expensive to build/maintain and very few people utilize them. Why spend $500,000 on a pipe that will see slim regular use and maybe a couple minor contests? It just doesn't even come close to adding up.
 
my experience with pipes on the east coast has been terrible. walls of solid blue ice and softer snow in the bottom often makes for terribly unpredictable speed. combined with the ever increasing popularity of rails and the fact that skiers now need a seperate pair of skis just to ski pipe it's not hard to see why their popularity has declined.

with the decline in popularity brings the decline in resorts making them. park builders are going for most efficient features in terms of cost to set up and maintain vs. popularity. obviously that's not true for every feature and many larger parks, but the fact is smaller hills can't afford to waste so much money, time and space on these things.
 
my other solution:

have pipes be smaller like i said, but also make them crazy and rag tag like they used to be. personally i think it's way more fun to fly around on them and find little side booters and hips on the fly than it is to scrape up and down on ice walls with edge-less park skis
 
didn't read the comments, but just to inform you: corvatch has a perfect superpipe right now
 
Only one pipe is currently open in California and its at Mammoth. Boreal will have one soon but thats about it. Sad to see, pipes are really fun!
 
Oslo got 2, one small, and one superpipe, I love it! The small one is shitty tho.. oh and I don't know if the rest of the country have anyone.. Trysil and Kongsberg both used to, but they are long gone.
 
I just don't understand why they don't get much traffic. Riding a 22 foot pipe is fucking awesome fun. I'm not a great pipe skier, but if a resort made a 26 foot pipe I would spend the entire season hiking it.
 
If I can get 5-6 hits on a super pipe versus 5-6 different rails/jibs, the answer seems obvious. When it comes down to it, it's the same wall, whereas each rail/jib is different. That's not even factoring in jumps. I hate to say it, but pipe isn't really fun to watch as well.
 
JIB PIPES ARE THE FUTURE.

Nice little pipe with 6ft walls with wallrides and rails scattered on the deck are so fun and flowy.
 
For some reason 7 springs prides themselves on having a 22 ft superpipe when its the biggest waste of time and effort possible imo
 
Sugarloaf which usually does have a pretty good pipe didn't build one this year, I am not complaining though.

Maybe with the disappearance of superpipes more money will be allotted towards the rest of the parks budget. Imagine how many sick rails a mountain could build with what it costs to build a pipe.
 
Copper, Crested Butte, Breck, Vail, Snowmass, Buttermilk, Winter Park (?), Steamboat (?), Durango (c- pipe).

Come to Colorado, We have all the pipe.
 
Fratboat used to pride itself on the MAVERICKS SUPER PIPE, while the rest of the park was an embarrassment compared to the size and quality of resort Steamboat is
 
carinthias still got the pipe. dont really know about the rest of the east...sunday river maybe?
 
Okemo's pipe was cut beautifully last week. It definitely sees a fair amount of use. I suck at pipe, but I lap the shit out of it because it's so much fun. And once spring rolls around, it's going to be the best shit ever. I would be extremely disappointed if Okemo decided to drop their pipe.
 
Nobody hits them and they're expensive as fuck.

Think about what a 10-20k budget for steel can do with building new features in the park. Now the fact that 10-20k isn't even close to building a legit halfpipe.

If kids like rails, only hit rails, why not save money and throw down a nice rail park.

Jumps are getting larger though. Jumps flow a lot better with rails. Unfortunately halfpipes became the odd man out in terrain parks. You all these jumps and rails in a line and the pipe just kind of sits there. Some mountains the park flows down into the pipe which I've always thought was pretty sick if it's maintained but a lot of places it's just chillin on the side.

What I don't understand is with the massive expenses of everything you see many mountains spending such little money on rails. Compared to other things rails and boxes really aren't that expensive. Definitely seeing the trend of building more stuff in house and getting out new features but not on that large of a scale and not even happening at many places.

I agree as some have said about mini pipes. I wish more places had 12-14 footers. Inviting for everyone.

I remember when having a park pretty much meant having a halfpipe. That was how you became serious about parks. There are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO many old 12-14' pipe dragons sitting in bornyards across the country. It's pretty sad. They had a decent run but it didn't last. Hoping that the mountains that still build them have enough interest to keep them.

It's crazy to have watched them all pop up all over the place so quickly and then boom watch them all disappear.
 
Yea the day of the pipe is over. Sad to see Washington basically void of pipes.

Cost is certainly one factor. Many areas probably leased or invested in smaller cutters, only to basically be obsolete in the larger scheme of things on arrival. Even then the small dragons and small zauggs are insanely expensive.

But beyond cost, the maintenance to keep a good pipe going is difficult (and, of course, adds to the expense). A couple of warm, sunny days can render a pipe nearly useless without massive upkeep, but you can keep jumps and rails going for much, much longer with far less work.
 
Skiing pipe is too scary, hard, and isnt as fun as hitting jumps or sliding rails. It also requires exceptional skiing fundamentals such as edge control and air awareness that kids who started skiing by sliding small rails simply don't have. They're also expensive as shit like everybody else has pointed out. My mountain has one and has had one for a long time and every year i see less and less people actual using it (other than the ski school taking little kids through the middle of it). i wish they would get rid of it and use the snow and space for a jump or two.
 
Pretty much aside from Whistler, it's thin, and only at the bigger areas. Sun Valley has really utilized Dollar with their park and solid pipe. Beyond that, just Mt Hood Meadows and Mt Bachelor, unless Timberline has a full pipe in winter.
 
^this. They also maintain a mini pipe in the north park. every time I'm there i might see 2-3 people that can throw down in the pipe. although its still cool to see i won't complain. I just didn't realize that most mountains don't maintain a pipe especially out west. its nice to be spoiled.
 
Our pipe here at whistler is getting shaped like right now. This year they decided to not make a 22 and go back down to an 18 foot.
 
Whitefaces used to be rock hard ice bent in the form of a pipe for most of the year but I really do miss that Maui North double header where you did a slope contest in the morning and a pipe contest in the afternoon. I think it died 10 years ago, but that was a good time.

I really hope there will be a revival. I've never liked watching it as much as riding it. I wonder if that's one of the problems. You really don't see many if any pipe shots in most films.

I hope more places can figure out ways to incorporate it into the regular park. Whether it's more stuff to jib on the walls, having a pipe in the park somewhere where it isn't off in the boonies, or tossing in some 1/4s. I would really hate to see pipe get any more dead than it is now.

 
Not sure what its like normally but the mayrhofen pipe this year is a jib pipe with pipes & taps etc but its not great its super sketchy and snowboardery. They dont even maintain the walls so you cant even ride it like a mini pipe. I see one or two guys go through it in a day i would be so much more game for it if it were just a mini but with the such mixed and warm weather we've had it's understandable.
 
Mountain creek actually got to do one this year. Last time I was in it the lip was chewed up from a warm day. I hadn't ridden a pipe in like four years prior to that, so I was quite rusty. I wish I had pipe skills, it's fun.
 
Sun Valley actually has the biggest pipe in the states right now. The Rev Tour hits town and they will be sessioning the 24ft walls. Its in great shape and a blast to ride.
 
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