Why so many good park skiers come from the east

Gr0mo

Gr0mo

Member
Why do so many good freeskiers in the community come from the east coast? I guess you could argue it has something to do with the population density over here. Still, theres something else.

Tom Wallisch comes from Pittsburg and every ones favorite AM, Stepp comes from roundtop? Both of those places aren't exactly the first place you look for good skiers. The reason the east coast generates great park skiers is simple; its the best way to challenge yourself out here.

The west has such great skiing. When I go out to Breck, its hard to find time to lap the park. There's just so much awesome terrain I never really think about it. At my home mountain the terrain is limited, and thats putting it nicely. The only real rush i get there is hitting the park and going big. For a lot of us, once you get to a point the only way to get better is to get to the park and practice that pretz 2.

tldr;

The park is the most challenging thing to ski on the east.
 
That being said, kids who grow up hitting perfect kickers and endless rail lines out west get pretty damn good, too.
 
Don't see that often but they do have some good indoor freestyle training facilities in the n east. You can't forget about liberty mountain snowflex center for summer riding either. You might find these to be of interest to riders everywhere.
 
because the east coast kids arnt getting shafted by the amount of snow west has (at least where i am). they havent even put up the big jumps at my resort
 
two words: HOT LAPS. Can make 70-100 runs in a day with high speed lifts and rope tows, you can sesh from sunrise to after dark in midwest and east coast which equals many more hits on features...you just dont get the big jumps or massive features like out west in most small resorts
 
While the East, can't have big mountains, tons of snow, and great conditions, the ski areas are able to make great parks even with limited resources. Also, although there are a lot of great park skiers from the East, I think the number is exaggerated because they stand out so much.
 
1.HOT LAPS especially for rails

2.Nothing better to do. No pow or good terrain in the mid west or mid Atlantic regions.

3. Used to shit conditions so good conditions make things much easier

 
Cause there's nothing better to do in new jersey. The groomers are either flat, crowded with hordes of noob snowboarders or there's just no snow. The good ones are taken for race practice. There's no cliffs, you can't ski trees because there's usually only snow where they make it, the exception being this winter. Ski patrol will yell at you for skiing groomers backwards (the switch), even though I have better control backwards than half the people from nyc skiing forwards...

It's only a matter of time before you start jumping off stuff, then you become a park skier.
 
hot laps help for sure being from theeast. also you make the most ideal skiing days that you get because the next day there could be 6 inches of ice, 2 feet of snow, 50 degree weather, you name it.
 
There's a lot more freeskiing programs and reps looking for kids to sponsor on the east coast. Kids on the west coast (with a few exceptions like SLC and whistler) are more on their own.
 
hot laps in my park on the average day are 3 and a half-4 and a half minutes depending on the line. im an instructor and I get like 7 or 8 on my lunch hour. so 70-100 is a pretty standard day of lapping the park
 
They're used to skiing on concrete. A lot of places have limited terrain. If the snow sucks and the terrain is limited might as well throw down in the park. If you're used to throwing down hard on concrete it does something for you. Especially in the spring when it get's nice or if there's actually snow you can straight kill it.

Ice coast kids fear nothing.

As said you have the smaller very lappable places where you can get a ton of hits in every day. There really are some awesome parks on the east coast that rival anything out west. Mountains like Loon that pretty much kill it in every sense and have forever.

I remember being younger growing up in NY. Whitefaces rail game wasn't so great for a while but they've been building big jumps forever. Was wondering if anybody would ever take off from there. The last couple years some of those kids are starting to make moves.

More and more people have access to at least decent parks these days. It kind of levels the playing field. You don't need thousands of feet of vertical or 500" of snowfall to have a good park.
 
I wouldn't say that there are more skiers from the East but the East Coast has a bunch of mountains that are devoted to having a good park. Mount snow, VT for example just took like 1/3 of their okay mountain and made it one of the best parks on the East coast. Where I feel out West there are so many other great trails and pow to focus on rather than waste a pow day hitting rails
 
Summer set ups. Shorter winters = more desperate to ski = summer set up construction = tru rail game = $

and if you can land rodeo 5's, and cork 7's etc.. on sketchy small jumps of solid ice then progressing to bigger tricks on a good jump with good snow happens fast.
 
Exactly what I was going to say.

The amount of laps you can get on the East is fucked. Thats why alot of the best rail riders come out of here.

A) Because our jumps fucking suck

B) Because you can hit a rail thrity times to lock in that Kfed
 
I can get about 15 on my mountain in the Midwest, but then again, that's probably because no one else skis there lol
 
at the mountains i ski at in NY you can ski from 8 AM to 11PM. that is so much more than 9AM to 4PM out west. also, they are usually a LOT less crowded
 
70-100 laps in a day can be done with ease at my home mountain. I'd say I get well over that on a weekend when I ski 3:30 to midnight. Here at Perfect North, 1 park lap takes less than 45seconds to get to the bottom haha
 
this is why i got into park skiing at 30yrs old. Got bored, started hitting jumps and rails.

Im guessing thats why so many good park skiers are from the east, nothing better to ski

 
haha youre talking about already established pros. there are literally 30+ kids youve probably never heard of that ride PC every day that would be in the top 3 best at any east coast hill. the average skier here is exponentially better. i'm sure the same case could be made for summit county and other western locations as well.
 
Personally, why I choose to ski park is simple. My home mountain is 365 ft. tall. NO JOKE. I love to ski, so instead of complaining about how much this sucks, and only heading out on days with good conditions, I chose to just adapt and ski park. It's really all i do when I'm at the mountain, and in just two years here in Boone, NC where I attend College, I've gone from barely being able to slide anything besides boxes to throwing 2's on and off and hitting things doing "The Switch" I can only imagine what someone who's had more time than I have had could do. Want an example? Check out KBake's stuff.
 
Shout out to hyland that has a 55-60ft jump that I've seen floaty double corks on despite being 150ft vertical. Rope accessed too.
 
The real title should be why so many good rail skiers come from the east. Jumps are typically not the best on the ice coast.
 
meh it goes both ways. There are kids from the east that could tear it up at those comps. As well. The better quality parks and better riders might be more consistent out there but there is still a lot of talent coming from the east.

I also wonder what would happen to some of those west coast kids if they hit the ice coast on a typical ice coast day.
 
A lot of them were already tearing it up on the east. Huge rail game, multiple dubs all learned on the ice coast.

Do they get better out there? Of course, but they didn't suck before they left the east.
 
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