Today's bluebird day reminded me more of March than January, the temperatures were pretty mild. It was one of those perfect park days, the ones you usually dream about until March or early April. As you know, King's Crown opened last week. I know all of you read Matt's post on how to Smart Style it, if you didn't read it yet, do it now. The only thing left at this point is upper Jonesy's. Thanks park crew for all of your hard work so far! Now that the mountain and parks are open it's time to get your shred on! Well, your shred on and of course checking out of the events we have planned for the next few weeks.
In Sundance fashion, we are very excited for our own film, "I Ride Park City" to be one of 30 films chosen to be a part of the X-Dance Film Festival. There will be an "I Ride Park City" screening Friday, January 16 at 6:00 p.m. The screening will be at Off Broadway Theatre in SLC (272 S. Main St). Tickets can be purchased at www.x-dance.com and are between $5 and $7. Athletes from the film will be in attendance. If you haven't seen "I Ride Park City" yet, here is your chance. You can also purchase the film at www.pcride.com or at the resort.
Lucky 13 - Jonsing to ski or ride PC, but short on the $$$. $13 Lift Ticket, $13 Equipment Rental, 13 Days - Night Ski or Snowboard at Park City Mountain Resort for only $13, January 19–31, 2009. Enjoy great terrain located off of the PayDay and First Time chairlifts from 3:30 to 7:30 pm. Plus, rent the latest in equipment from Park City Mountain Rentals for only $13 (good for night rentals after 3:30 pm). Utah residents only: Proof of Utah residency to be shown at time of purchase. Tickets may be purchased at any ticket window located in the Resort's Base Area or in Park City Mountain Rentals. This great offer is only available for the last 13 days in January! Bring your friends.
Are you an awesome photographer or a rad rider looking for your chance to show the world your skillz? Send me some photos and I'll post them here (and even give you photo/rider credit)! I reserve the right to deny your shots based on radness, skillness and just plain smartness. meishal@pcmr.com
I'm thinking this is enough for this blog post, but I haven't even gotten to the events we're hosting at the resort in the next few weeks....I guess you'll have to stay tuned! If you absolutely can't wait and must know more RIGHT NOW check out our events calendar at www.pcride.com.
The season is almost here, we are chomping at the bit for temps that are low enough to make snow. While we are all waiting I want to address our safety initiative for you all. We use the NSAA ( http://www.nsaa.org ) Smart Style freestyle terrain safety initiative. On top of Your Responsibility Code ( http://www.nsaa.org/nsaa/safety/heads_up/know_the_code.asp ), the Smart Style is "a cooperative effort to continue the proper use and progression of freestyle terrain at mountain resorts, while also delivering a unified message that is clear, concise, and effective." I wanted to make this post so that everyone would take a couple minutes out of their day to read and watch the video, so that everyone is on the same page as we are coming into the early season.
We want you to enjoy yourself here at the resort and we want to be able to enjoy our workday here at the resort, but we also hold the safety of our guests to the highest regard. If you are creating an unsafe situation for yourself or for our other guests in one of our parks, one of my Park Crew guys will ask you to stop and take you aside to explain why you were stopped. If what you are doing is posing a threat to guests and/or employees, we may give you a warning and or take your pass. The length of us pulling a pass is not set in stone and varies on each individual instance. We only pulled a few passes last year, we aren't here to be the police, but please think about what you are doing before you do it so we don't have to stop you and chat :)
TERRAIN PARK SAFETY
Freestyle Terrain is becoming more popular at resorts and proper use is important . The National Ski Areas Association and Burton Snowboards have developed the "Smart Style" Freestyle Terrain Safety initiative, a cooperative effort to continue the proper use and progression of freestyle terrain at mountain resorts, while also delivering a unified message that is clear, concise, and effective.
The 3 main points of Smart Style include:
Look Before You Leap
Before getting into freestyle terrain observe all signage and warnings
Scope around the jumps first not over them
Use your first run as a warm up run and to familiarize yourself with the terrain
Be aware that the features change constantly due to weather, usage, grooming and time of day.
Do not jump blindly and use a spotter when necessary
Easy Style It
Know your limits and ski/ride within your ability level
Look for small progression parks or features to begin with and work your way up.
Freestyle skills require maintaining control on the ground and in the air
Do not attempt any features unless you have sufficient ability and experience to do so safely
Inverted aerials increase your risk of injury and are not recommended.
Respect Gets Respect
Respect the terrain and others (Freestyle terrain is for everyone regardless of equipment or ability)
One person on a feature at a time
Wait your turn and call your start
Always clear the landing area quickly
Respect all signs and stay off closed terrain and feature
Remember that ducking a rope into a closed area of the mountain is against Summit County Ordinance 110, which states that violating a closure put in place is against the law and is a prosecutable offense. We close the parks for good reasons, not just to keep you guys from having fun. A few various examples could be that we have snowcats in there building or maintaining the park. If you were to come across a winch cat fully extended, you would not hear the cat or see the winch line. That winch line can do alot of damage to a person if you ride into a closed park. Or riding into the closed park when we have cats in there building the park or maintaining the park, you wouldn't be able to hear them or see them, and when you ride over the knuckle of the jump and the cat is right there grooming a landing, it isn't a good thing.
If the skies open up and dump upon us, we may shut down a park for a few hours in the morning. It gives my guys time to dig out features without the public on the run. There were many instances last year where we were almost taken out by people not paying attention, or paying attention and tried to hit the feature on purpose while we were working on it. That isn't acceptable.
Also, if we close a park due to a good amount of snow, like we did a few times for jonesys last year, beyond reason number two, it is because we deem that the conditions have made the park features impossible to ride.
When we close down the parks at night, we generally go this route. Upper Jonesys is closed by 3:45pm, Lower Jonesys by 4pm. Kings Crown is closed by 3:45pm and Pick N Shovel is closed at 4pm. We may or may not close down payday some days anytime between 3pm and 4pm for up to 45 minutes if it is deemed necessary.
When we close the parks, my guys go through and rake all the non jump features, things the snowcats can't generally groom. At night when we do our final rake, we rake snow up onto said feature. This snow needs time to set up and become hard. If you were to duck the rope and ride those features you would create ruts because the snow hasn't had enough time to set up and is still very soft. That ruins the feature for the next day because when the snow does set up overnight it sets up with ruts in it and those will take time to rake out in the morning. That may mean closing the feature down for an unspecified amount of time to fix the feature.
Now that I have been rambling on for quite some time, I'll end this by saying we enjoy having you guys on the hill riding our features and giving us feedback. (riding by at high speed yelling "you guys suck" is not acceptable feedback though) Stop and chat with us or ride with us. We want you to have a good time up here, so think a little about what you are doing so we can all have a good day. And BE SAFE!
