Building Rails/ Park Crew

Jesus Christ dude you ever heard of a paragraph?

CatdickBojanglesJesus Christ dude you ever heard of a paragraph?

not that hard to read, plus OP alluded to that in his post if u took like 2 mins to read it.

sorry OP don't really have good advice. I guess if they care about profit then try to find a way to convince them that they can make more money if they improve their park. Seems like more and more resorts are neglecting their parks but hopefully tey'll have a change of heart. best of luck

So here's the shitty thing. Some mtns put in low effort and refuse to change no matter what you do.

On the plus your mtn does have a park and has features. Also, some places and programs can definitely be turned around. It's reallt situational.

I gor on park crew when I was 17. Had been teaching lessons since 14 and was hired by a bigger mtn to do that. Got sort of fired and hired in the same meeting because i built a big jump since the mtn didnt have one yet.

I really took to it right from the beginning. Its cool to do it even just for a season or 2. I ended up working every northern hem season since then and a bunch of soithern ones.

Also my home hill growing up had no park, none at all. I went back later and built a bunch of rails and got a sick little park going for a couple years. They didnt think they needed somebody and wouldnt hire me at first so i volunteered. Ended up being super cool. I was living back at my parents so i didnt have to pay rent.

I've worked at a lot of places huge places woth bog budgets or little mom and pop places.


As far as their old features, have you offered to help refutbish them? Like tell them if they give you an angle grinder and buy you some wherls, fflap discs, and paint you and your freinds are down to fix things up.

Do they have a standard paint job and the mtns logo on the features? If they dont, this could be a good in. Having all the features with the same paint job makes it look clean and professional. Having their logo is free marketing when people take photos and video clips.

You can pick up some cool skillsworking on rails. Good way to learn to weld and just cutting everything and prepping to build. It's way lower stakes than building a bridge or something so you dont have too be crazy good at first. If your weld sucks just grind it off and do it again.

I do get having to be 18 for some jobs. I think even for teaching you have to be at a lot of mtns. My home hill was super small so i was able to teach when I could legally work at 14. I'm pretty sure the place i started park crew only hired 18+ for that. I was 17 but they needed somebody passionate and thought I'd be a good fit.

I'm surprised they won't let you volunteer at all though. Sometimes places just dont care, and sometimes places/people have too much pride ego. Guy I worked for my first 2 years was kinda a shitty persin and def a shitty builder. He got to go to one of the first cutters camps and learned nothing. Some of the best builders in North America and he was all Iknow everything blah blah. A guy from whiteface who built sick jumps offered to come help for one of the events and he said no. Could have learned something.

Some places simply don't see the value in it. One of the big park programs takes a lot of time, money, and people. But a small park stacked with rails is pretty easy. Also rails are cheap to build and easy to move around and switch up.

I would just touch base with them and be honest that you both want to help make the park sicker, and also learn some skills. That you're open to work for them when you're 18 if they won't hire you now.

Be level headed. Don't shit on their program and staff. Be tactful in the way you engage. If you roll in there hot bitching about how they suck and the park sucks(even if you think that) won't help.

Stay after them. Don't be too annoying but stay in it. Make sure they know you're serious.

Ive been on some small crews. Hell at my home mtn it was just me. I would get a friend to help me sometimes or ski school kids to help if i had to move a rail but otherwise on my own.

Park crew is pretty cool. If you take to it and it ends up being your jam it's a pretty cool creative outlet. Also cool to ride shit you built.

If your mtn is poor or being dumb about $$$ to fix up the fleet, try and get donations or see if you can have a rail jam where part of the entry goes toward supplies or steel. If you do this make sure people know. People love to support the local hill. I got my steel from donations when I was at the home hill.

I learned to weld at that job and have built and fixed tons of features at different mtns over the years.

I also ended up in a snowcat which is my year round gig now between the northern and southern hem.

When I started my family was worried. Relatives would send me info on colleges. The fact that it was seasinal and the pay def scared them. The pay sucked, its finally decent but still not near what I could make in an ex.

But yeah irs my full time job year round and I still love it.

Wish you the best man! Always sick to pimp out the local hill. Thats what its about.

A lot of people love to bitch about parks if they suck or worse, even if they're good. People are super fast to complain but rarely ever want to do anything to make them better.

Hopefully the owners are receptive and ipen to letting you guys help in some form.

If they're down but only for volunteer, maybe see if you can get your pass next year for free for volunteering so you at least get something out of it. If there's an employee discount on food maybe try and get that too.

I don't know the mtn or the people so who knows. But its worth a shot. All you can do it try!

Teach yourself how to weld, use an angle grinders etc, park crew isn’t just raking lips and designing cool parks. I bet those old rails that aren’t being used need a ton of work to be safe. It’s a lot easier to get a job by saying “here’s what I can do” rather than “I want to help out”

hi_vis360Teach yourself how to weld, use an angle grinders etc, park crew isn’t just raking lips and designing cool parks. I bet those old rails that aren’t being used need a ton of work to be safe. It’s a lot easier to get a job by saying “here’s what I can do” rather than “I want to help out”

I think it's easier to learn how to work with steel on the job. Grinding, welding etc. If you dont have a dad or relative that welds a little tricky to learn unless taking vocational classes.

msfhyso basically i’m a 16 kid trying to get into the realm of working in park crew. My local hill does not have any effort whatsoever into building a park but we have a huge group of teens that would be willing to help and work on it, however we have no way of getting our voices heard. We’ve talked to the park crew, management, owner, park manager, etc. but no luck with getting anything heard. they refuse to hire under 18 even though they have in the previous years and whenever we offer to volunteer it’s usually overheard. I want to know how to get an in to a stuck up hill ran by old heads who don’t want to see change. We have all stated multiple reasons to improve on the park aspect but where they don’t see profit, they don’t put in effort. Every year we are told it will be better than the last and every year it’s worse than the last. We have a rail yard that consists of 7 fresh rails and about 2 dozen rails that haven’t been touched since the 2000s. I feel like these rails could be refurbished if we just put the time, money and people into and i’m willing to learn all the steps to make that happen as my peers are too. I don’t know what it takes to get recognized or heard even when I have connections to both managers of the hill and a father who will openly talk to them about how awful of a job they are doing. My dad used to work at the hill for 10+ years making parks and grooming. I’ve tried to get him to speak out about it and offer to help but he is focused on his job too much to be able to do anything to assist. I have no clue what to do to get into the profession but I know that right now where I am in life, that’s what I want to do. If anyone can give input whatsoever on this it would be greatly appreciated because I have no clue where to start other than the basic stuff we have already tried. p.s. sorry if this was written shitty, like I said i’m 16 and also doing this on an iphone on my way back from a place that had a park that completely shocked me and my friends and I want our park to do the same. 😁

Good on ya lil dude. I'd say get to work writing up a professional looking proposal and submitting that to a manager. There are things such as health and safety considerations that they will have to be thinking about before they let a bunch of teens loose, no matter how good your intentions are for helping out. If you injure yourself while moving some of their equipment and your parents want to sue its more of a headache. Could even be that a park is not part of their business plan anymore and are phasing it out (lets be real, parks are niche as fuck).

So this was my last year at the home mtn in NY. Like I said donated $ for steel, volunteered building the rails. Setup was pretty fun. We only had a small jimp or 2 but had a decent rail setup going from small baby box up to stuff like this.

Idk its very satisfying to build something at your local.

You seem passionate so thats good. It can be tough to get into the industry but also so many mtns are short handed. If you want to give it a go, do it. Also all mtns and the ski industry in general has a little bullshit. Don't let that burn you oit of work. And especially not skiing.

Keep us updated OP

i dont have any advice to help but definitely wishing you the best of luck homie

Sucks they dont hire under 18.
i started working in the park at 14 and learned to drive a cat at 19.

Am now 20 and fully building and managing a decently sized park.

might not be easy but if you become a snowcat operator and are ready to groom more than just the park, management is much more likely to let you build stuff

Edit: dont really know how to make an edit on an actual post but I am now currently banned from my hill till july. hate this mtn so much.

msfhyEdit: dont really know how to make an edit on an actual post but I am now currently banned from my hill till july. hate this mtn so much.

Yo what

hi_vis360Teach yourself how to weld, use an angle grinders etc, park crew isn’t just raking lips and designing cool parks. I bet those old rails that aren’t being used need a ton of work to be safe. It’s a lot easier to get a job by saying “here’s what I can do” rather than “I want to help out”

theabortionatorI think it's easier to learn how to work with steel on the job. Grinding, welding etc. If you dont have a dad or relative that welds a little tricky to learn unless taking vocational classes.

Very true. OP hopefully your high school has a metals class that can get you started with these skills. Welding and metalwork is really satisfying work

msfhyso basically i’m a 16 kid trying to get into the realm of working in park crew. My local hill does not have any effort whatsoever into building a park but we have a huge group of teens that would be willing to help and work on it, however we have no way of getting our voices heard. We’ve talked to the park crew, management, owner, park manager, etc. but no luck with getting anything heard. they refuse to hire under 18 even though they have in the previous years and whenever we offer to volunteer it’s usually overheard. I want to know how to get an in to a stuck up hill ran by old heads who don’t want to see change. We have all stated multiple reasons to improve on the park aspect but where they don’t see profit, they don’t put in effort. Every year we are told it will be better than the last and every year it’s worse than the last. We have a rail yard that consists of 7 fresh rails and about 2 dozen rails that haven’t been touched since the 2000s. I feel like these rails could be refurbished if we just put the time, money and people into and i’m willing to learn all the steps to make that happen as my peers are too. I don’t know what it takes to get recognized or heard even when I have connections to both managers of the hill and a father who will openly talk to them about how awful of a job they are doing. My dad used to work at the hill for 10+ years making parks and grooming. I’ve tried to get him to speak out about it and offer to help but he is focused on his job too much to be able to do anything to assist. I have no clue what to do to get into the profession but I know that right now where I am in life, that’s what I want to do. If anyone can give input whatsoever on this it would be greatly appreciated because I have no clue where to start other than the basic stuff we have already tried. p.s. sorry if this was written shitty, like I said i’m 16 and also doing this on an iphone on my way back from a place that had a park that completely shocked me and my friends and I want our park to do the same. 😁

Are you talking about Holiday Valley?

msfhyEdit: dont really know how to make an edit on an actual post but I am now currently banned from my hill till july. hate this mtn so much.

Details?

msfhyEdit: dont really know how to make an edit on an actual post but I am now currently banned from my hill till july. hate this mtn so much.

Need more info... Where's the deetz truck at?