Terrain Park Location at Ski Resorts

The times I have seen where this isn't the case is when mountains set up smaller parks by one of the smaller lifts, so little riders can go there and learn. That type of set up also keeps people happy I think..?

i mean, it's going to depend on a lot of things. layout of the mtn, snowmaking (and retaining) ability in certain locations, having attention on the park(s) but not having them mixed too much with gaper runs, etc. plus, mtns love being able to say "5 different parks!" on their ads and stuff

also, i dont think it's fair to compare most places to keystone or mt snow. those are mtns that have gone balls deep to please park riders. at a lot of places the park crew won't get nearly as much resources or real estate to work with as they do at places like that. carinthia is dope but you can imagine that covering the entire peak in park features doesnt help the mtn attract a big portion of consumers: the majority of people that don't care about parks

I actually would say more larger mountains follow this model. Consolidation of parks and having most of your park services by 1 lift is more standard these days at the larger resorts. Mainly it's to keep the dirt bags separate from the 1%.

Mount Blow took it a bit far. They should cut that shit in half. Waste of money and resources.

My pet peeve is when parks are put in an area that has no good terrain leading up. Bridger Bowl, where I ski for example is a fantastic mountain but to ski the park you have to go to the lower mountain which is super flat. I often imagine it would be awesome to be able to ski some dope terrain then hit the park on the way to the lift. I had a blast skiing Grand Targhee because in one run you could hit wide open powder, trees, and then a jump line all in one lap. I shouldn't really complain since i'm super lucky to Bridger all the time, but I feel like it would just make so much more sense to put a park higher on the mountain. It would also keep all the hooligans away from the families and beginners.

a lot of places just get some shitty run that nobody really wants to ride because it's a shit area.

3/4 of our parks are on the flattest, windiest part of the mountain, above tree line.
amazing on sunny warm days with a firm snow pack but other than that we constantly struggle with weather and speed.

Very few parks have decent lifts mostly slow doubles and triples except carinthia maybe Stratton. Makes me not want to do it especially when you can hop on a express and just rip.

I wish they would just put every feature they owned or made in a line so you don't have to skip and choose.

A lot of smaller mountains use the one or two trails that might kind of work that nobody likes. Even then, it might not have been skied by more than 10 people in 875 years, but as soon as you put a park on it, somebody will bitch on social media about how that was their favorite trail, and some how none of the other trails can compare to the memories. Even though they probably only went down it 3 times in their lives. People just hate parks.


As mentioned sometimes it has to do with separating ability levels. There will be a nice extra small/small park near some beginner terrain. Different mountains have different reasons. Some as basic as "we've been building our parks there for 15 years and we're too lazy to change it.

Sometimes it's fun to cruise around a mountain a bit to check out different parks. Sometimes it's nice to just hot lap the fuck out of them in one zone. I don't generally care too much either way.