Response to Bishop's Blog (and some questions)

This wont help anything really but High North is a ski camp you can go to during the summer

Working at high north is basically just not going to happen.

Thanks for the replys. Where is High North and is it a resort or a camp?
-aaron

I would recommend jay peak for a cheap vacation. It is the best deal you will find and it is pretty damn good especially for the east. Decent park too with some pretty big jumps. I dont quite understand what your post has to do with mr bishops blog but okay

^a camp.

you have alot of places between montreal and quebec city which would be your best bets for park. tremblant and avila (both around mtl) have some high ranking parks might be worth checking out

In Bishop's blog he said, "If you want something changed about the park, talk to the park staff, send emails to the general contact box at the resort, make calls, whatever! Don't let them get away with this... you must rally so that all parks in the world will improve." This kid just wants to know why it isn't working, I guess try harder.
My resort's park has always been pretty decent, but grooming was sometimes pretty sloppy. But this winter they have stepped up by buying more rails and getting a pipe cutter, but still sometimes the jump can get sloppy and whatnot, so the other day I emailed someone who works for the resort and I attached some pictures of Vail's jumps in their park, saying that these are sick jumps and I'd love to see things like this in our park. The guy was totally nice and said:
Thanks for your comments and interest in our terrain parks. We are
off to a slow start due to weather conditions, but today we have Sunset
Park and the Halfpipe closed to rework and reconstruct and add more
features. Earlier this week, the staff built 2 very large jumps on the
new Giant Steps Terrain Park. Keep checking my reports for updates and
listings of the features. Thanks for the photos, and I will pass them
on to our park staff.
I mean sometimes shit like this works, and I hope it works our well for my resort and for your's, too. Hopefully I'll hit up my park this weekend and find huge, smooth jumps, who knows.

Thanks for the posts Shadow and Aseets. I am going to email them again and find out what happened to the meeting and stuff.

As for ski trips I was thinking of going to something in Quebec or Montreal. What are the skiiers like there and what kind of features do the parks have? Thanks for the info. Keep posting comments and stuff. Thanks
-aaron

whoa man real fucking helpful there

Like I said, go for jay. They are already cheap but they also take canadian money on par with american. I highly recommend it

Actually, it was, because if he listens to me he won't waste his time trying to go down a road that will lead him nowhere. There's about a 1 in 100 chance (I'm probably being generous) of getting digging work etc at HN without having some sort of inside contacts or some sort of industry rep.

man, my hill is about 350 feet of vertical, basically a lump in the ground.

i seem to remember a major competition going on a marble a few years back. i forget what it was called. but it didnt look to bad.

and alot of what i can say about the park is it has to do alot with insurance, and alot to do with the amount of energy/money your hill is willing to exert.

try and convince your hill to hold another competition. that has got to get them thinking about the state of there park and pipe.
this year, my resort is holding "you look good" and our park is 3 times as good as it has ever been!

Man I just wish I had that extra 1,000 bucks to go...

atleast you guys have madd sick urban as seen in "Forward"

go to quebec, hit up st anne massif and stoneham, go home happy

If you plan on moving to a resort, pretty much any resort, don't count on saving money while you are there. Most of the time the rent is quite expensive and you end up living paycheque to paycheque. If you do find yourself having money left over at the end of the month, the lifestyle (i.e. drinking, etc.) will drain you down to nothing. Stay at home, or move to where you can make money if you are concerned about saving. Then go on vacations. Tremblant would be your closest and best bet for sure.

Does anyone here live at a resort? Or have you tried to before?
-aaron

"So I ask you my first question, do you have any tips about maintaining the park and anything that is hard to do, easy to do and fun to ride?"

Ok... for me this is a HUGE question that I could probably write a novel about. You're right though, educating yourself it the key to the whole process. For trips, go everywhere and check out different parks and see what's out there... its the only way to know what you like in a feature. I'm real fond of quebec and Avila has an amazing park (check out their park update)

I'll give you a few quick tips about building and maintaining:

1) ALWAYS build a jump with a tape measure. It doesn't matter how close you think your size 12 foot is to one foot, you're wrong. I've fucked up jumps by 20' by stepping them out. Build with tape and that way you know exactly how big it is.

2) EVERY rail should be built on a deck, with a landing. The landing will make the rail more fun to hit, and it will bomb out way less throughout the day. The flatter the landing feels, the more damaged it will get.

3) (quote from the june mountain pipe builder) "There are only two kinds of pipes in this world. Ones that are absolutely perfect, and ones that are total shit." If you're machine operator isn't into making a perfect pipe you're totally fucked. If they are into it, just make sure to ride the pipe and talk to the guy about how it rides. Put bamboo at the spots that are undervert, so that he knows where to fix it. Have good communication with your pipe cutter... hell if you get a job on park staff go ride with him for an evening. It only takes 40 hours to learn to run a pipe grinder, so if you like it you can get a job there.

4) Building a jump is a hard thing to do. It's a real artform, and even just seeing a picture and trying to build it is hard as fuck. Your best bet is to sit with a cat driver and try to guide a jump being built. You'll screw up your first few, but make sure to always hit a jump you build. That way you know exactly what it feels like. Having tape measure is key, and as well if you can find one get a clinometer. It is a device to measure slope. Lift maintenance at the mountain will sometimes have them. There's a console in the middle of the cat between the driver and passenger. This spot is flat with the tracks, and you can measure the angle of your landing from there. 31-33 degrees is optimal for the landing of a jump. Takeoff is your call... no rules for that, it's a matter of being able to eyeball it. If it's way too flat, and needs some kick, backblading won't always do enough. You need to cut out the first 10 feet of the jump, and re-start it. Also, sometimes the jump just sucks, and you should plow it down and start again. Most major jumps I've built have taken 2-3 attemps of knocking it down and starting over.

5) The thing at the back of a cat is called a tiller. It makes corderoy. To fix jumps at night, most cat operators simply drop the tiller on the feature and make it smooth. Problem is, if there's ruts in the jump, it will only turn to corderoy ruts. At the end of the day, if your park staff throws a few shovelfulls of snow into the tracks inthe takeoffs and landings, and gets it roughly flat it will turn out a million times more pimp the next day. "The better it is before it's tilled, the better it is after."

In terms of writing in and trying to get something going... especially at a mountain where there isn't a developed park it's difficult to get something started. The good thing is, that it's an opportunity to grow the project of the terrain park yourself, and turn it into a really good place to ride.

Keep harassing everyone you can. It took me two years to finally get a job in Blue's park. Day after day, week after week I kept telling them they needed a skier on their park staff. I think finally my girlfriend at the time pulled some strings and ot me in there. Keep fighting... if you really want it that bad never give up. Hell if they give you the job just to stop you from annoying them, they still gave you the job.

Ok, one final thought and I'll end this rediculously long post...

Rails: Many people think that you have to buy cool rails from some company that charges a zillion dollars. NOT TRUE.

Every mountain has welders on staff that fix all of the metal parts at a ski mountain. They fix snowgun towers, lift towers, sign posts, whatever. They have racks and racks of steel and all the welding tools necessary to make rails. You simply work alongside them and build anything you can think of. Draw up plans, and have a meeting with the cat drivers, the welders and the park staff. There's a few things you need to think about:

1) How do we build it, and what materials do we need.
2) How do we move it? It has to be taken to the park and put in the ground.

2 is the most important. IF you build a huge rail and can't move it, you're pretty much fucked.

Also other tips on rail building:

For kinks - 10deg is super mellow, 15 is nice and smooth, and 20 starts to get steep and hard. 25 is gnarly and 30 is crazy. MEASURE YOUR ANGLES.

Rails always look WAY bigger in the shop than they will be on the hill. Don't ever build anything smaller than 8'. That's as small a rail as should ever exist.

Also, use steel. Forget wood, plastic, any other crap. Panel it in steel, make the box top out of steel... everything.

Then simply put to pieces of 6x2 square tubing sideways in the rail, and get your mountains forks for the cat. Almost every mountain has forks for the cat, and unless the rail is rediculously massive, forks are the best way to move it.

If it's too massive, just build it to be dragged.

Ok, I'll stop ranting for now...

^ Wow. Good lord. Wow.

^^ that makes me appreciate my hill's park monkeys so much more.

great job doug

I really love building parks... it's pretty much my first passion.

Just wish there was more money in it. :)

That's the problem with mountain jobs... just don't pay that well, and it's seasonal work, which makes it all the much harder.

mann....try and get a job at mt hood meadows. we have so much potential, but our park crew are extreme slackers who dont do anything.

i wish i could get in around here as a park builder...no luck though (no decent prks in need of a park crew or the park guys are 100% boarders)

most useful and informative thing i have ever read on this site.


you should do something weekly... like park tips and weird things like that, cuz everything i have ever read from you is good stuff, even your interview...

get nopoles to get you a weekly gig!

I really would love to do tips on building stuff... and like how to work with your mountain properly and shit...

Hrmmm... maybe I'll start working on that after I get home...

Do it, that would be soo dope

Mr. Bishop,
you should start a tour, teaching park crews around the country how to build parks!

no thats not the point at all...the point is its fucking lame to try and show how cool and high up in the NS heirachy you are to some kid trying to get some help.

Attitash needs help with thier park!
PLEASE HELP!

Hey
Thanks for posting Bishop, that gave me some great tips on where to go. I just sent off an email to the president of my hill (i've emailed her before and she gets back pretty fast so it should be good) and ask about the park and where thats headed this year if we get snow. Hopefully i'll land a job, or even do it for no money.

Our park is pretty small, we could have 5 jump and 3 rails and the half pipe. How many people (this is if i get the job) should I hire on the park crew to help? Thanks again for the info.
-aaron