The Tough Mudder returned to Tahoe last weekend and the rumor is that 40,000 people came to town for the event. Every available parking lot around the area was used for parking cars for shuttle busses, including the Alpine Meadows lot. One participant noted that someone tagged some park features stored in the lot.
While we don”t condone vandalism, it’s clear that some people really don’t care for the concept of a mile long terrain park at Alpine Meadows, especially one that takes out all of Terry’s Return and Dance Floor.
Parks do draw a younger crowd and families, so they make sense. They are a necessary part of any viable resort operation. As always, moderation is the key and long stretches of terrain park do hinder access to some areas of the mountain.
Last year’s conversion of Dance Floor into a full park, combined with Ladies Slalom set as a race course, really limited people’s access to Gunner’s Knob. Previous efforts at “parkifying” Terry’s Return caused some bottlenecks to skiers and riders coming out of Pygmy Forest, Palisades and Keyhole. Similar traffic jams were created last season on Lower Sympathy Face.
There’s certainly some mixed opinions about how much park is enough park and what location is appropriate. I would love to see a return to a Kangaroo arena with park and pipe on Kangaroo, a mid size park on the Ridge and showcase jumps on Nick’s.