Here to place some facts down again....Inferno will just be a ski trail next season as it was decided last year. (Don't worry though the last two jumps are staying) This is because they have to give a trail to the Condo Association that owns property next to Grommet. The only reason why features are ever put on inferno are for shoots/competitions. So, since they don't host the Big Slopestyle event anymore no need to built it top to bottom. This has been the plan all along, thats why if you went to Carinthia last season they cleared a bunch of trees next to the half pipe. This was done for two reasons, First to be able to keep the last two jumps without taking up to much room on inferno, and to use the 30+ feet of snow the snow guns blew into that little section of woods. So yes, no need to Build inferno as it is a pretty boring park trail that no one rides the top of.
If they were to cut down trails to Nitro business would go downhill I believe. Monday-Friday they have three or more schools (SMS, MSA, ASTC) training on either Gulch, Inferno, or Nitro. If they didn't have those three main trails for them stuff would get hectic. A lot of the programs have younger and older divisions, so the young guns ride Nitro then go to train jumps on Inferno or rails on Gulch when ready. Gulch jumps barley ever get hit because its a tough spot for speed and the rail line next to the jumps is unreal haha.
Finally, as for the "Ash & Steel" this was an event hosted by Snowboy Productions Last season. They are a Snowboard only event that comes around and builds rad setups at diffrent parks across the world. They wanted to use they Ash wood rails they had in prospector and make an event called "Ash & Steel". This event happened last year late spring and they decided to just let it ride instead of digging all the rails out. I can tell you for a fact that the wood rails are staying. As of yesterday, the boys were greasing them up and husking new additions for this season. This is actually . huge draw and I know people that come from pretty far just to hit the wooden feature we have. Ya never know though maybe some more metal wooden combos are on the way