Erik Leines and the Celtek Clan spent a day in PC last week. Erik put together a video and a few words about their day. Here is what he had to say:
No regrets about going to Park City to shred with the Celtek Clan
"We had a killer day up at Park City Mountain Resort last Friday. My brother Bjorn and I decided that we needed to pull the team together to shred and hang out for the day. After Jeremy Cooper, Park City's terrain park manager, told us he'd love to have us up to the hill we knew it was possible to have a great day. The team met early and we immediately started lapping the park. I must say for how little natural snow the park crew had to work with, they really pulled it together and made some amazing jumps and jibs. All of us enjoyed a bunch of laughs and no regrets! We called it a day and went over to the local shop, The Click to say what up to their crew and grab some grub next door. Later that night all of us met up at Celtek to skate the mini-ramp. Super good times, thanks again PC for letting us come shred on this epic early season day."
Olympic dreams will be made and broken during the 2010 U.S. Snowboarding Grand Prix as the tour makes three stops in its 14th season. A total of five Olympic qualifications will take place at Copper Mountain, Mammoth Mountain and the final stop at Park City Mountain Resort. The announcement of the 2010 Olympic halfpipe team will be made right here at PCMR!
The competition will heat up as Olympic gold medalists Kelly Clark, Hannah Teter and Shawn White, along with fellow Olympic medalists Gretchen Bleiler, JJ Thomas and Danny Kass all look for another shot at Olympic glory. Joining them in the hunt will be Grand Prix overall champions Steve Fisher and Louie Vito as well as Grand Prix podium performers Ellery Hollingsworth, Clair Bidez, Greg Bretz and Olympian Elena Hight.
NBC, the Olympic network, and Versus will broadcast the competition. Go211.com will webcast the Grand Prix live from each stop.
Park City's Historic Pipe Rides Again
The historic pipe where U.S. athletes swept the men's podium and won gold in the women's event during the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002 will entertain the masses with Olympians again. The Grand Prix makes its final stop at Park City Mountain Resort for back to back night competitions, after which the winners will be crowned and the 2010 Olympic halfpipe team will be named.
Among the athletes stoked to hit the Park City pipe is White who, after having dinner wiht PCMR owner John Cumming, took to his Twitter page to spread the good news.
"Had dinner with John Cumming," White wrote. "Super nice guy, he told me Park City is having Olympic qualis mid Jan! booyeah!"
A reduced field comprised of the highest scoring athletes from previous tour stops will throw down the best tricks in their bag in an attempt to be one of the few named to the Olympic halfpipe team when the event is over.
"It's the perfect place to close the story of the Olympic team selection," said USSA Vice President of Events Calum Clark. "The pipe has the tradition of being one of the best in North America. They put a tremendous amount of pride and energy into their venue. They are very excited to have this here."
Clark is right! We are very excited to host this historic event. NBC, the Olympic network, and Versus will broadcast the competitions. Go211.com will webcast the Grand Prix live from each stop. We'll have more details in the coming months. Fortunately, January is still a few months away!
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!
