(gwmccull) wrote in message . com...
Hello, I'm a ski/snowboard instructor at a little resort in
California. Our terrain park is pretty lousy right now so a couple of
the instructors are putting together a proposal for management on how
to improve our park.

What do you think should be included in a good novice/intermediate
terrain park? Remember, this has to be a fairly mellow park for a
family-oriented resort. We currently have a few toys: a 16ft rail, a
kinked rail, a mail box, a fun box and a rainbow box.

We are also looking for some guidelines on how to design good jumps.
Does anyone out there know the specific formulas (or at least close)
that better resorts use when calculating the angle and length of
kicker and transition? We are looking for something along the lines
of: for every foot of table the kicker/transistion should X feet long
and for every degree of inclination on the kicker the transistion
should have a downslope of Y degrees.

So does anyone know of a good resource for this information (internet
or book) or does anyone work in a terrain park?

Also, does anyone have any idea how we can convince management to
devote more resources to this project? Our biggest problem is that
they won't hire anyone to go out and clean up the jumps and
transitions during the day.

Thanks
Garrett

Well the main problem obviously is that you don't have a dedicated
"dig team" that maintains the park. That is rather important. They
don't need to clean up the jumps and transition during the day... they
just need to run a CAT over the runs to groomer them on Friday night
and then rake/shape the approaches a little on Saturday morning. That
should last most of the weekend.

Don't know of any resources for park building. But for a
beginner-intermediate park, you try to have jumps of several length -
short ones in particular the beginners can practice on... like a 5-10
foot "roller" with a lip on it, it's basically a little approach and
then a long landing so they can go at any speed they want. Tabletops
are nice, but most people fail to get enough speed to clear them. So
also mark jump with poles and either blue squares or black diamond to
rate difficult (just cut them out of plastic). Many resorts actually
split the two levels and make people sign a waiver and charge a
nominal fee to gain access to the expert park. This might be beyond
you means.

Still I'd have to say you should try convince your managers that if
you are a small resort, a park can be you main attraction for kids and
price conscious adults (especially if you charge like an extra $10 for
a "park" pass on top of regular ticket sales). Try going to the dig
teams of other resorts, or snowboard camps like High Cascade.