Snowparks for boarders

31st January 2009

Snowboarding has it's connections with skateboarding. From the early days of snowboarding in the 1980s, where snowboarders came from skateboarding it was only natural that snowboarding would borrow from skateparks and set up terrain or snowparks. The layout of these earlier parks and the setup of jumps came from skateboarding.

Snowparks for boarders

Vail (vail.snow.com) was one of the very first resorts to build a snowpark and now has one of the best parks in the business: the Golden Peak Terrain Park.

With three different areas to explore – Aviator, Fly Zone and Flight School, it's pretty cool - it has the daddy - a Superpipe, which is an Olympic-sized half-pipe, as well as host of smaller bits including a mini-pipe for beginners.

A few years ago snowboarders were not always catered for in every resort, indeed in the US, snowboarders and skiers have not always seen eye to eye, with some resorts blanket banning snowboarders.

So the presence of a snowpark in a resort made it clear to snowboarders that they were accepted, in fact encouraged to visit the resort. Now it seems that most resorts have a snowpark to try to encourage boarders, as the sport has developed.

Resorts have taken different approaches to snowparks with some building them from scratch, while others (particularly in France) add to natural obstacles and gullies, creating a more natural park.

Burton (snowboard manufacturer) has built two parks -  Stash (thestash.com) in Avoriaz, France (avoriaz. com) and the Austria resort of Flachauwinkl (absolutpark.com/thestash).

Both of these parks are "organic" - taking advantage of natural terrain. The obstacles at Stash are entirely made out of wood, earth, trees and stone.

Stash (Avoriaz) has some amazing runs, up to a mile long – riders are encourages to try and take different lines and not just use the same obstacle or jump time and time again, the park is well designed, with even signs built to allow riders to use them as part of their runs.

So the futures bright for snowparks at the moment, with more and more being built, the success of Shaun White (the man, the boarder and the business man), the ever deftifying stunts only increases the popularity of snowboarding, thankfully resorts are paying attention.

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