The debate about Alpine Meadows terrain parks has been heating up over at Facebook. This week, Alpine Meadows published a post promoting the park, which will soon extend from the top of Alpine Bowl to the bottom of the mountain near Sandy’s Corner. There’s really a mile wide generational gap about how people view the park, or even terrain parks in general.
Surely, terrain parks have continued to bring a younger demographic back into winter snowsports. There is not much doubt that most mountains need to provide park features to thrive. Two of the biggest names in skier superpipe this year, David Wise and Brita Sigourney, both got their start skiing parks and halfpipe with the Alpine Meadows Freestyle team. There’s also a whole new upcoming generation of skiers, tele skiers and boarders that make the best of Alpine meadows parks.
The questions all seem to revolve about the quantity and location of park features at Alpine Meadows. It’s clear that Dance Floor seems to be a sore spot amongst Alpine regulars. It was just last week that I heard a friend say he was producing these stickers:
In looking at the many comments posted at Facebook, where about 2/3 of the comments seem to favor the new park setup, there are a number of very valid points made by naysayers:
• The number of people using the park seems small for the amount of intermediate terrain that is being used
• Putting the park on runs that are secondary runs instead of primary runs would still be awesome and allow people that want to access the park to still have a great line, while not impeding those that want to avoid the park. It made more sense when park features were built on Charity, Kangaroo Ridge and the Weasel loop above ABC.
• There’s a number of people that have expressed a distaste for the military and gun related theme for the parks. It seems like soon we will be seeing an Army or NRA sponsorship for the parks.
• There are some bad choke points being created by park fencing. Areas that are frequently mentioned include the blocking of the upper right entrance to Rock Garden; forcing traffic from Palisades and Keyhole into the park, or into Deer Camp; forcing traffic from lower Sympathy Face to follow along the fence line to Sandy’s Corner; and the extension of the park lower on Tiegel run blocking reentry to Roundhouse for non-park skiers and boarders.
• You have to wonder if there is some attempt at justifying the high cost of lift tickets by providing these features that obviously are not natural, and not cheap to build or maintain.
At some point, you have to wonder if enough people state an opinion, that at least some reasonable compromise can be made and other options explored. Personally I really liked it when Kangaroo was an all park chair with big features on Kangaroo, huge features on Nick’s and medium features on Kangaroo Ridge. That also allowed Alpine to sell a cheaper park only ticket.
There’s no one answer to keep everyone happy. But expressing opinions does make a difference so we hope you do so. Thank god we were able to get rid of Tubeville! Feel free to express an opinion in comments here, or feel free to join the fray at the newly created Facebook page “Move The Terrain Park at Alpine Meadows“, which is not our page, but still may be an interesting read if people start making posts.
And on a closer for today, while perusing Alpine’s Facebook page, we ran across this very amusing comment on Alpine’s SkiDuck Auction post:
We’re sure they will build a longer terrain park at Squaw Valley 😉
Thursday update: There’s been a ton of traffic regarding this topic and I was suddenly reminded of this picture we posted back on September 24th after it was anonymously submitted to us. We still don’t condone vandalism, but it seems like there’s been some big dissension brewing for a while.
I also thought that Kangaroo was a great idea, best use for an otherwise almost useless lift. Yellow might also be a viable option. Boarders care more that there are some features than where they are, if you build it they will come. Free the mountain for the majority of us who love Alpine for the natural terrain park it already is! This does nothing to preserve the character of Alpine Meadows as was promised.
As a decades-long Alpine skier (age 66 now), I am deeply concerned about turning the place into Squaw’s park place. I have no quarrel with parks per se, but this idea is misguided. It will impact skiers throughout the front side of the resort, and by dint of its sheer size, in effect define Alpine as a “boarder” destination. (Remember when Alpine didn’t even allow boards?) To me, Alpine has always been the anti-attitude mountain, with its side-country access, vast amounts of ungroomed terrain, and laid back, family friendly ethos. Running a giant park right down the spine of the place goes against all that. Wouldn’t it be better to preserve the laid back / hard core skier’s haven and leave the park stuff to Squaw.
Even with the current park just down Dance Floor, I have observed that the ratio of park users to skiers and riders outside the park area is quite small. So why devote so much real estate to a small number of folks? Particularly when you are depriving beginner / intermediate skiers of the one enjoyable and non-threatening way down. (Yes, there is Weasel/Hotwheels, but that’s has it’s own bottle necks.)
I am not a member of Facebook, but want to make my concerns heard with management. Does anyone have an email address for someone at Alpine? Thanks.
They tend to keep particular e-mail accounts “off the radar”. I appreciate your sentiment on Facebook. Although I do use Facebook, there’s a whole crowd that does not, and many workplaces/schools etc where it is blocked. One of the reasons I run this site is to provide a forum for non-Facebookers. For what it’s worth, a number of the Alpine Meadows managers are regular readers here.
Been posting about this on the alpine facebook thread. One of the main reasons the park was moved was to allow racers back on kangaroo and because the slope of the terrain was to steep for a park (injury rates have decreased with the park being moved to a more rolling mild slope). I do see some issues with the park and many of the park riders as well as non park riders have brought them up. I’m sure some solutions will be enacted. The SPT guys are out there constantly looking at flow of both park riders and non park riders and making adjustments as they see fit. They are super friendly and welcome you guys to give advice and suggestions. I hope over time with the increase in beginner and intermediate features and a larger park, alpine will see more families and individuals of all ages learning to properly ride terrain park features. Give it a try or explore some new terrain that you ride less frequently. Either way be positive and go have fun on the mountain!!!!!!!
Excellent comments as always TR. I do know a couple of other posters on this subject… And the thing is they never actually ride DanceFloor themselves. They jus recognize it a valuable intermediate terrain. One point I heard today was about looking at Dance Floor when you first see it entering the parking lot. The big jump line looks huge and impressive. It either fills a guy with stoke, or with fear.
I agree with Mark’s comments. Alpine Bowl/ Dance Floor is the only top to bottom fall line groomer at AM; all other routes involve traversing. On busy days large number of skiers are forced onto the limited routes remaining (even worse when Yellow Trail, or whatever they call it now, is roped off for racing). When I look at Dance Floor from the lift I see that most users are using the run as a groomer to the bottom, skiing around the features, not over them. And judging popularity by Facebook comments is not accurate–some of us prefer to keep our souls to ourselves and either don’t have or have cancelled our Facebook accounts. If KSL actually cares what its current customers feel they should send out a survey. Or maybe they feel that most current customers are locked-in passholders and that more money is to be made by selling overpriced day use tickets to families with a couple of teenagers.
I’m glad someone got a laugh out of the comment I left on the Alpine Meadows Facebook page. Keep up the good work at UnofficialAlpine!
I just want to say thank you to UnofficialAlpine for posting the Facebook link to “Move The Terrain Park at Alpine Meadows”. I created the page for a couple of reasons 1) I feel a Park of this nature does cause some unnecessary safety concerns in regards to traffic flow on the upper mountain. 2) I feel the terrian is just being misused. Not very many people even use the park, or even have the ability to use the features. Compare how many skiier and riders used Dance Floor before the park to the number of people that use the park now. So why expand it and make all the paying pass holders lessen there mountain experience for a handful of park enthusiast. Even with that said, I feel the park does deserve a place on the mountain, just a more suitable one that doesn’t effect so many patrons. So I started the page in order for people to voice their opinion concerning the park.
Given the amount of riders in the park midweek and on powder days, why not just call it the dead zone? Also, blocking outer limits from top to bottom last weekend for a race…nice.
Koolaid
Slurping
Lunatics
Bottom line: Alpine Meadows is a business, so they should probably do whatever keeps them profitable. That way we can continue to have lift access to all those beautiful steeps. There were still fresh tracks to be found in Cartoon Land today. Perhaps the park should be moved out there since it’s not getting as much traffic as other spots on the mountain.
An additional problem with the mile long park is that it blocks the lower half of the off piste powder run from the top of Roundhouse, which is one of the best options on high wind days when the upper mountain lifts are closed. I wonder if the over-the-top park has anything to do with Snow Park Technolgies’ upcoming reality show on the National Geographic Channel.
Excellent point.
Long time Alpine/Squaw passholder. Skied Alpine for the first time this year today.
1) The terrain park is a disaster. It’s in the wrong place. For intermediates, they’ve blocked off one of the main routes to the bottom and going down the same few runs over and over quickly gets dull. For experts, one of the best attributes of Alpine was how one could bounce around between all of the various off-piste areas on any run down – now they’ve blocked off the mountain right down the middle. Alpine is no longer the same ski area. It feels like it was put there by somebody who actually doesn’t ski Alpine. It’s now a far worse “experience” skiing there for a day than it was in the past.
As others have said, there are better places to put this little used park. I can’t believe the amount of primo ski real estate devoted to a handful of people. I will say both people using it today seemed to be having fun.
2) The place isn’t worth $99 midweek ticket. The mountain is great. But the base area isn’t a $100 mountain. There is far more ambience and things to do at Squaw, Heavenly or Northstar. That’s part of what you expect at a premium priced resort. Alpine doesn’t deliver.
I have lots of guests each year and bring them to the various Tahoe resorts. We won’t be going to Alpine this year – I’d be embarrassed to take people there at the current price.
While those who are local passholders may say “so what”, it’s not in Alpine’s best interests to not sell day tickets. Especially midweek – the place was empty today on a beautiful Wednesday.
Nicely said Al. You have said so many things I hear over and over on chairlift rides this season. I love Alpine, but the character is definitely changing. Sometimes change is good but not all change is good.
I have another issue I need to bring up that also relates to our cause, and that is Global Warming.
On Dec 7, 2012 Peter Fimrite, with the San Francisco Chronicle, wrote an article entitled Warmer winters chill ski industry.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Warmer-winters-chill-ski-industry-4101277.php
In this article Mr. Fimrite writes about the effects of global warming on the ski industry, and what the impacts are around the nation due to shorter winters, and less snow pack.
Andy Wirth, president and chief executive officer of Alpine Meadows, and Squaw Valley was apparently asked his opinions on the topic and was quoted as saying, “There have arguably been shortened seasons because of a lack of snow, but there have also been seasons when the snow was great and jobs were created. This last ski season we had people really strongly suggesting that the impacts of climate change were upon us, but I remind them that the year before we had over 800 inches of snow and we were skiing on the July Fourth weekend.”
Then on Dec 19th 2012, I received a Squaw Valley/Alpine Meadows email. The email was entitled “14 feet of snow with more on the way. An updated from Andy Wirth.” In this email was a section headlined “Impacts of Global Warming” . This is what it said…Impacts of Global Warming
“In a somewhat contrasting light, I want to draw your attention to an important topic that, even when we enjoyed a record breaking snowfall in 2010-11, I pointed out to all within listening range and that’s climate change. Presently, we’re enjoying one of the colder and snowier October through December time frames on record. Despite that our company and I are very much focused on the realities of climate change, taking all actions we can to reduce our carbon footprint, energy consumption and more. In response to an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle recently, Chris Steinkamp from Protect Our Winters and I wrote a focused response which has become a clear summary of our point of view on this critical topic. I hope you will take a moment to review these letters“.
http://www1.squaw.com/andy-wirth-and-sf-chronicle
Now with all this being said, you ask what is my point?
My main point is this, How can the CEO of Alpine/Squaw say that he is “focused on the realities of climate change, taking ALL actions we can to reduce our carbon footprint, energy consumption and more”, when in reality, at both Alpine and Squaw, he is burning diesel, running snowcats, and using manpower to build Terrain Parks that a very small percentage of his clientele even use or even have the ability to use.
If Mr. Wirth was being sincere about his statements he would be using the terrain wisely and expending his resources on the terrain that is actually being used. If we are going to leave a carbon footprint behind, let’s at least do it on something that is actually being utilized…like Dance Floor. How can you say that you are taken All actions, when you have just taken a run that was used by thousands of boarders and skiers, and turned around and spent even more resources to turn the run into something that is hardly used?
Do we need to leave a 1 mile long trail of carbon foot print all over our mountain every year?
No matter how Mr.Wirth felt Squaw and Alpine were depicted in the SF Chronicle, the importance of conserving energy, utilizing our resources is still a reality. Actions always speak louder then words. FREE DANCE FLOOR!
If any one here shares our point of view please “LIKE” our Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/MoveTheTerrainParkAtAlpineMeadows
Maybe this explains it–Squawalpine is part of the coalition bidding for the Winter X Games.
http://www.sierrasun.com/article/20130117/SPORTS/130119925/1066&ParentProfile=1051
And BTW what X Games sport is half as “extreme” as a World Cup Downhill or Super G?
Since any comments I’ve made on Alpine’s FB page seems to be ignored by the KSL overlords that now run Alpine, I’ll use this page to plead to everyone to be careful at Alpine this three day holiday MLK weekend now that the terrain park has been fully developed on Dance Floor. I shudder to think what Charity and the other runs will be like mid day with Dance Floor now out of the picture. And with President’s Holiday a month away and Alpine talking about expanding the terrain park up Rock Garden and into Alpine Bowl I dread to think of what the congestion and potential for accidents that has been needlessly increased for what is essentially a marketing tool for Alpine and its consultants. I hope Alpine Meadows can live with themselves if people start getting hurt in the constricted areas of Rock Garden for instance. Bottom line, let’s be careful out there as I now doubt Alpine is interested in the general public’s safety.