I keep seeing all these skiing pipe competitions in the newschoolers news section on the home page. Personally, I don't like these updates really at all. The thing I like about watching freeskiing is the creativity to do anything. And the creativity and innovation of new features along with completely new tricks. Therefore I find myself more interested in park skiing competitions. There are more oppurtunities for cooler and different tricks on rails and jumps. In the pipe however, most tricks are limited to the same old spin and grab (most of the runs end up looking the same and the tricks are very similar).
Ofcourse I love watching pipe runs especially in the x games and other big events. Since the pipe is the same every year but the tricks change, we see the progression of the sport. The pipe ends up being a skiing stadium.
but overall, the heart of the sport is in the park. Most mountains have parks but few have pipes. Pipe riding in general is just not as fun and is limited to the tricks.