Park Projects
This season at Grouse we have designed and built some new features for the park. We decided to keep it simple and try our best to keep it Mother Earth friendly. We were able to create our new features using roughly 80% reused or recycled material that I found either on Grouse or on the internet.
Our biggest feature is a 40’ long, 8”diameter retired snowmaking pipe that has been raised to 9’ and will be set atop a spine as a flat bar. The other big project is a recycled pontoon trailer cut into a fat stall bar for atop our QP that will be maintained more frequently and properly with the help of our new park groomer. Also in the mix will be a variety of steel and plastic barrels, rails and random jibs.
Stay tuned for our opening date, as we are trying our best to get things open up at Grouse Mountain so all can come out and start playing on our new features.
I ride grouse about 35-40 times a year. This past season saw the introduction of an S-rail that i would consider “pro level”. I predicted before the beginning of the season that i would never see anyone try the rail and i never did.
The average rider of the Grouse Advanced Park would struggle to ride a 40 foot long, 8″ diameter rail. You have also added the difficulty of putting it 9 feet above a spine that would need to be at least 5 feet high to get the 9 feet of vert required to get on top of it. This is the kind of feature that is beyond 95% of the snowboard/ski world. I don’t believe it would see high traffic in the Blackcomb XL park. I understand that you may be trying to appeal to a higher level of rider, but you are using 10% of the space for 1% of the riders.
How you budget your park features is not my concern. My issue is that this kind of feature will take up a lot of valuable space in the park as well as a lot of park crew time. Please try and be more practical in the future.
Thanks for considering this comment.
Dave
I agree with the above, not too many people are gonna be riding that monster. I hope this doesn’t take up too much room because there’s lots of potential up there.
ps. rhythm sections are where it’s at!!! Please consider for this upcomming season…i’ll help build it.
Fraser
I appreciate your comments and I am always open to input from the people who ride the park, as it is them we are ultimately trying to please. However, when I design and build the obstacles, we consider many different factors. First, we make sure we build multiple obstacles for different ability levels, that being said, other than the 40′ rail, we have; 8 barrels, a small stall bar, a large stall bar (3′-5′H on top of the QP), two 20′L x 4′H flat rails, and a 20′L x 4′ H down rail. Now don’t forget to take into consideration, (something ‘NO’ one has yet done) that all these obstacles will be dug into the ground at least 1.5′-2′ in the snow and the 40′ L x 9′H rail will have to be dug in at least 2′-3′ making it only 6′-7′H. You labeling it a ‘Pro’ level feature we feel is incorrect, but to each their own…however, it will definitely be set up as an advanced feature. Lets also not forget that it is possible to dig as deep as we possible thanks to the wonder that is snow, so we could actually have the 40′ rail a foot out of the snow if we so felt inclined.
You also mentioned the ‘S’ rail; I predicted the same as you, thinking it would not be used as much as I had originally planned once I saw the bend in it. When I designed the ‘S’ rail, it was to be way more mellow, almost as if it were a warped straight rail, but we had the rail built of sight and I was unfortunately unable to supervise in its creation, so it was built incorrectly and way too ‘S’ like, although, we did see many long sessions go down on it and mostly by skiers. I can admit the ‘S’ rail was definitely a failed experiment, but that’s how people learn… from their mistakes, so I know now that if the rails being built are by companies with no experience than supervision is a must.
Back to the 40′ rail… yes it will take up some serious real estate, but we are trying to legitimize Grouse as a freestyle destination for skiers and snowboarders, making the Quiksilver park an advanced level park. We would not label it ‘Pro’ as we do not have 50′-60′ tables or ‘death’ jibs. The jibs are set up as advanced and the tables will hopefully be around 30′-40′ if possible, because we want kids to have a place to progress and hone their skills to make it to the next level as a sponsored rider if they wish. We have the ‘Rookie’ park, which is set up for beginner-intermediate riders, and once comfortable with the obstacles there can move over to the Quiksilver park. Also, rhythm sections are super fun and hopefully with the addition of an experienced park groomer for this season we can maintain one similar to the one we had last season a little better.
We also agree with you that the majority of the skiers and snowboarders that ride Grouse are intermediate-advanced at best, but there is a small number that are truly advanced in their abilities. Like I mentioned just above, our goal is to help those kids that are intermediate-advanced progress to the advanced level and hopefully even further if they so desire.
Again, thanks for the comments and concerns; we do enjoy reading intelligent constructive feedback, because it is riders like you that we are trying to create a fun and progressive park for. We can’t please everyone and we don’t try to, but from the input we received from people about last seasons Park, we did a pretty sweet job and the new features (minus the ‘S’ rail to most) were a huge success. If you are riding up Grouse regularly, we encourage you to stop and say what’s up to any of the crew or myself, as we want to get to know our local riders more.
Cashen
“but from the input we received from people about last seasons Park, we did a pretty sweet job and the new features (minus the ‘S’ rail to most) were a huge success” did u not read anything on the other wall cause im pretty sure most people said last years park sucked
this rail would be so fun as just a 1-2 ft high down rail
hey TWOSIX figure it out
that rail is tight. cant wait to hit it
I’m excited to hit the huge rail this year. For some people up there, there isn’t any obstacles that challenge them and this will do that. If it doesn’t work then you can always make it shorter like you said. I think it should be set up on top of a massive landing and experiment with it being an up rail. Would it be possible to put some puck board on the sides for a wallride option?
Hey guys, I haven’t officially posted on here yet. Mostly because until today we haven’t had any snow, I haven’t started yet, and were not open. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Shaw. I’m the new park groomer for this season. Grouse is the only north shore mountain that has, to my knowledge, ever hired a park groomer.
I think it’s really cool to see people super interested in the park this year, and posting both on here and the facebook page. There’s some hate out there over the new rail, and the overall park design. As much as I dislike hating, it gets me stoked to see that people care this much, and are super interested in what’s going down in the park this year. I built the terrain park in Manning Park last year. I put in a lot of time and effort, both paid and volunteered to maintain a consistently sick park. And no one really cared nor gave feedback, the market just wasn’t there.
This year, i came on at grouse because I want to be apart of what the Grouse park is going to be this year. There is definitely going to be a new look to the park this year, and I think it’s going to get people stoked on grouse.
So before everyone has a heart attack about park setups and rail features, wait until they’re setup. At most resorts, unless you have the budget of Whistler Blackcomb, the terrain park is built by the Groomers, who typicaly don’t ride park. So they’re going off no experience and no passion for what they’re doing. THIS is the difference at Grouse this season. I know what a jump should look like, because I actually ride park, and I want to be riding the best possible jumps day in and day out.
I look forward to meeting everyone on this blog up in the park this season, and for sure pray for snow, because we could use some more.
SHAW
Wow, amazing looking feature! Can’t wait to hit it. Long single tubes are so much fun.
man if u guys dont open paradide by monday that would suck cause you easily could
Grouse Mountain’s down flat down rails, both the tram rail and mellow dfd, are the BEST down flat downs on the entire WEST COAST
Downbars are nice, double barrel and single barrels
Polejams are really fun
I have also seen at other resorts, putting up boxes on the sides of landings of jumps, I think its a good way to keep more features in the park, mind you, i gaurantee they would get a lot of traffic.
You tell em Shaw, i vouch for you man.
DAN JONAS
The snow report says that Paridise will open tomorrow. Is the Peak chairlift going to be open too?
just greenway quad
want to tell me the setup?
when is the rookie and quiksilver park opening?
What about the jumps, because everyone in this thing is talking about the rails (this 1 looks super fun), so how big and where will the jumps be set up.
[...] – Capita Snowboards: Super Scary Corporation #9 – Candide Kamera #8 – Park Projects #7 – Ride Snowboards: Always DFC #6 – Reverse Camber: Snowboarding’s New Black #5 – SIA! #4 – [...]