What Makes a Terrain Park

Over on First Tracks they have a blurb about how the Resorts for Canadian Rockies (RCR) are removing big air jumps for reasons of safety. Considering the Big Air and Sno Jam is typically held at Fernie (an RCR owned resort), this is surprising news.

From the article there are a few interesting tidbits:

“We have found that one of the main issues that increase the likelihood of serious injury on our mountains is big air. When we are making decisions about safety at our resorts, the big jumps in the terrain parks always come into the equation. We decided to make a change.” -- Matt Mosteller, Senior Director of Business Development for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR).

To start with, actually there is nothing wrong with the initial reasoning for investigation. They were seeing a large number of injuries in one area and realized something needed to change. Although I'm not sure what options were presented, but my guess is something like:

1. Do nothing - financially a known research and development cost, although with an unknown total cost for injury support per year. An average can probably be determined.
   
2. Require training before allowing riders into the big air section - financially this should funnel some new money in to the Ski/Snowboard school per year. The downfall is you'd have to pay someone to check tickets/certification before allowing them in the park.
   
3. Remove the big air section - financially this will cut costs. Park crew will spend less time building the jump, snow won't need to be pulled in from other areas, and the potential loss of riders will probably be less then the yearly cost for injured riders.
   
4. Change the big air jump somehow - financially the complete wild card of the options. It would either require option 1 or 3 to happen in conjunction with it, which can add significant cost to any enterprise in the short term. The long term payoff is high, provided the resort is willing to try something new.
   

Breaking down the choices financially, it makes sense why they've selected option 3. Injury count is obviously something no resort wants, but what's not shared is how high is the injury count? The park has never been about providing an injury free area that is part of it's attraction. (One could argue that riding the groomers should not be considered an injury free area.) Pushing one's self towards the limit of your ability is what keeps people coming back for more, a fairly solitary man-vs-nature challenge. At the upper skill limits is also the area where the most number of injuries happen. Back to the point, injuries numbers. Once you've taken out big air jumps as the number cause of injuries, you have new number one. How long is it before a decision to remove that feature from the resort happens? What happens when that feature is the double black terrain?

"However, we believe we have a strong moral obligation to not compromise the safety of our guests.” -- Matt Mosteller, Senior Director of Business Development for Resorts of the Canadian Rockies (RCR).

Wow. The signed release waiver obviously isn't enough for RCR. Nor is providing trained instructors and emergency services for the guests and staff. Nor is personal responsibility for where I go and what I do. Nor are the numerous signs that typically surround the terrain parks warning of injury or death.

I clearly don't agree with the decision to remove the big air jumps, and I'm not even a fan of them. What will be interesting to see is at the end of the year what impact this decision has had on their business, and which other resorts may follow suit.

Seasonal Recruiting Efforts

Over the past few weeks, we've been pushing for new instructors for the school, both ski and snowboard. Being part of the team to train the new recruits (and retrain the returning instructors) has given me a little insight towards what I expect this season to be like.

The current running tally on the returning instructors:
-3 AASI Level 3 instructors (out of 4)
-1 AASI Level 2 instructor (out of 2)
-3 PSIA Level 1 instructors (out of 9)
-1 PSIA Level 2 instructor (out of 3)

The recruiting efforts netted us an interesting yield this year. 25 possible new recruits to train, evaluate, and hope they mix well with the vibe of the ski school. Out of those 25, only 4 are potential ski instructors. It will be a season with long working days again.

Chasing the Endless Winter

Ricky B has posted an entry (titled: Getting Ready for New Season(s)) talking about chasing the Endless Winter for a year, which brought to mind a couple of things.

I found the whole passport-work-permit-visa-having-enough-money thing too difficult for me at the time. Now that I know more about it, I'm hoping to take the right steps to make it happen for after this season.

Hey Ricky, if you get the chance, I'd personally enjoy seeing some blog entries on what you've discovered. How long it takes to get a work-permit visa, when to start applying, how much it costs, and what the expected income levels are (although given the current conversion rates for a dollar, it's gotta be better than anything here...).

That is if I can also get past the am-I-going-to-miss-summer thing.

For me, it's not so much missing the summer, as that is the hottest time of year. Instead I'd miss the longer daylight hours and the excitement seasons bring. I know as spring starts arriving, I begin to look forward to my days kayaking, cycling, and hiking. I also know that when fall hits, the leaves begin changing colors, I will dearly miss the excitement and build up that typically follows over the next few weeks for a new ski season. On the other hand, talk about an amazing experience.

Spiritual Sports

I'd like to welcome Kristen Ulmer to the world of blogging. Her blog seems to be more focused on the experience of skiing, to the point of being religious. I'm not sure how well she'll maintain the blog, given that her first post consists of:

Behold a blog about my life and the work I'm doing with regard to Ski to Live and wisdom sports facilitation! WHEW* I've been resisting doing this blog for awhile now- years- because I thought I'd have to write about my insanely wonderful and exciting life and that seemed not to be in integrity.

Given that the blog started on October 4th and there have been only 3 posts since then, I'm hesitant to add it to the daily reading. Post a little more Kristen and get your ideas and thoughts out there!

Return of the Season

This past weekend marked the first real sign that the season is about to begin. At least for those of us who will be conducting lessons this year. With very little fanfare the local resort instructors gathered to plot out schedules, coordinate clinic days, and general put everything in motion.

Typically this is an event for the Technical Director only, but this year my school opened it up to many of us lesser instructors. It's basically an effort to help push some new thinking into our way of doing things. I'm joining the festivities as part of my training for the next level of PSIA certification. Not sure if it will help, but it at least gets me face time with many of the clinicians local to the area.

On the other hand, it's been fun realizing how much I've forgotten since last year. Quick, what are the four types of learning? Can you recite Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and how it applies to the world of snowsports? How many CLOVERS and what do they stand for? The difference between a wedge turn and wedge christie is? Which muscles best initiate a turn?

Am I the only one that tends to loose all this information over the course of the summer? Is there some secret to retaining it (outside of reading the books again)? In any case, the books are my new best friend for reading material in the morning.... even if it's a bright, sunny, clear day with no snow expected as we've had for weeks now.

Choice Quotes

A few select choice quotes and stories from a recent stop at a local swap sale for your enjoyment.

"I'll totally show up for my job interview in this." -- said by a 30 something male while checking out some new pinstripe pants from Burton.

"Do you have any way to make it, less windy?" -- heard indirectly through a co-worker who being asked why the top of the mountain had to be so windy.

And finally for some entertainment value... this conversation was not only overheard but interjected upon my ears while waiting to pay for some new snow pants.

Clerk: Your card has been rejected, do you have another?
Blonde High School Girl (BHSG): Huh?
Clerk: Your card has been rejected. It won't go through. I can't let you take your purchase.
BHSG: I don't get it.
Clerk: It's been denied. Do you have another card to try?
BHSG: Daddy!

As if that weren't enough to make me laugh, I swear the next portion is true...

BHSG: Daddy this guy is telling me my card isn't good.
Daddy: Did you pay the bill?
BHSG: I mailed it in this morning! (it was now 11am)
Daddy: Well, maybe it hasn't arrived yet. They do want their money first honey.
BHSG: That doesn't mean they should stop my card from working!

At this point I laughed, Daddy got upset with me, and all I could do is apologize while pushing them out of the way so that I may finish my purchase.

Warren Miller - Playground

Had the opportunity to catch the grand-daddy of all snow films, Warren Miller's Playground. Every season, Warren Miller Entertainment puts together a snow film and brings with it an experience like none other that I've attended.

As far as the film itself goes, there's nothing too exciting about this film versus any other. Same locales, a few different riders highlighted, a custom soundtrack, and a lot of shots of people doing some great lines on the snow. Where it differentiates itself is in the presentation manner, with a more narrated format versus the "here it is in your face" style seen elsewhere. Oh, and the overly blatent product placement moments. Gotta show the sponsors some love somewhere. Typical formula was applied, intro segment, allow segment to run, end on some little joke. Send staff member to crazy locale, film it. Find people doing stupid fun things on snow, film it. This year included a very short segment on a guy jumping out of a helicopter in a bat-wing suit. It was so brief and confusing, I'm not entirely sure why it was included. MSP did a much better job of this stunt this year, and WM has done a much better job with the same stunt in Higher Ground. Whoever called for that segment to be kept in should probably be kicked out in the snow in their undies only for a few hours.

Where the Warren Miller exceeds is in the crowd participation, the pre-show excitement, the intermission, and the post-show parties. I had the opportunity to attend this year with a couple of first-time show attendees. They've all seen a WM film on DVD somewhere before, but never on the big screen presentation. The pre-show events this year weren't as exciting as years in the past. REI was there this year giving out... REI branded lip balm? The rush to fill out the page of questions from the program for a chance to win stuff was still in effect (I remembered to bring my own pen this year). The theater itself wasn't very full, a surprise for me. The opening act/speaker did an alright job of getting people excited. She was actually able to throw shirts and what not further back than the first 4 rows, but that was about it.

The intermission held more of the same. Fairly short, a brief round of things being tossed out by the MC. The highlight was watching the MC read off the name for the entry to the new Jeep contest, realizing that the kid was only 12, throw it back, and pull another. Nice job! None of us stuck around for the post-show party this year, but other friends tell me it was just as crazy as years before.

After the show the energy persisted, and the first-timers were completely ready to go get on a mountain and started skiing. It's great to see the excitement reflected in other riders.

Oh yeah, one thing that completely caught my attention this year. MatchStick Production's Seven Sunny Days contained a large collection of shots from a fairly late season shoot at a resort (lot of rocks and what not sticking out). If I'm not mistaken, during the second half of Playground it looks like WM was at the same location as MSP shooting the same footage. Case in point, we watch a skier in a white and green outfit hiking up the edge of a half pipe with the same background out of focus. Not sure if I'm seeing things or if that really happened. If it did, is this a sign that MSP is coming to replace WM, or that WM has sunk that far in production?