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MLBLUE
FALL2016
Consider it value-added, because there’s always a huge swath of
dedicated people behind your park—people who tirelessly maintain a fine
balance of everyday rider usability with the advanced set-ups required of
a world-class park. This is a crew dedicated to pushing the envelope and
stoking riders, while making sure the entire process, construction and
design, is approachable and transparent.
As you’re reading this, rails are being primped, snow cats are undergoing
maintenance, and groomers and designers are thinking ahead. These guys
and gals are ready for winter, all year around.
Aside from regularly neglecting the people you love to obsessively
manicure a snow park each and every night, the sentiment from Towers is,
It’s worth it. A lot of planning goes into each evening of park maintenance,
and with the build crew fuelled by a strict overnight diet of “coffee, Red
Bull, and candy,” every feature gets thoroughly tested by an eager batch
of groomer guinea pigs eachmorning before the lift opens at 10am.
Chatting with Towers reveals that the love going into the park is
universally acknowledged, from its riders, to the groomers, to the
supervisors. The feedback they receive from everyone—national
competition stakeholders and 10-year-old park groms alike, goes into the
design and flow of Blue’s collective park landscape.
“It’s a park built for riders, by riders. That’s the way we like to look at it.”
Cue Mike Towers, Blue’s Terrain and Bike Park Manager. He oversees the
development of the resort’s renownedmountain bike park all summer, and
the terrain parks dans l’hiver.
“Design, layout, staffing, I even get in the snow cat every now and then
to push snow,” says Towers. “We have in-house welders that will build
rails for us, and some of the bigger rails we purchase from local guys.”
The entire design process is a group effort, with two key cat operators
working overnight, every night. Two supervisors come together with the
on-hill crew to assist in scheduling and orchestrating a plan of attack,
and in turn they all come together with Towers and Pete Sutcliffe, Blue’s
Director of Mountain Experience, to collaboratively plan an innovative and
exciting park design.
“Our first design usually lays the groundwork for what we build later in
the season, providedwe have the right amount of snow…We progressively
build small andmedium features before we have snow in the Badlands
Park. Anywhere on the hill where we have free space, we’ll put a small or
medium rail park. Once we have the snow required for the big park, it’s
normally a two-day build and that’s whenwe’ll start putting jumps in—from
20-25 feet, until the end of the seasonwhenwe’ll have 60-65 footers.”
The collaboration between Blue’s dedicated park builders and groomers
doesn’t stop there; when an anticipatedmajor competition and its
promoters come to town, Blue’s park crewwill sit down with the extended
group and brainstorm ideas for new key features they feel will stoke the
riders, while making sure the park’s faithful ridership is considered as well.
Even the opinions of Blue’s team riders are reflected—who also contribute
ideas to consistently keep on top of how the park feels and flows.
“This is normally a month or a month and a half out from a competition,
and we’ll incorporate it into the daily operation of the park… closer to the
actual date, we’ll build it up if need be,” says Towers.
A lotof planninggoes intoeacheveningof park
maintenance, andwith thebuildcrew fuelledby
astrictovernightdietof “coffee, RedBull, and
candy,”every featuregets thoroughly testedbyan
eagerbatchof groomerguineapigseachmorning.
LEFT
Towers in the groomer baywithone of the operator-favouriteBisonX snow cats.
RIGHT
Themany rails of theBadlandsTerrainPark await their newpaint and freshwelds for the upcoming season.
