I am the new park boss at whitetail. love or hate tell me what you think.

well the set up for one of the comps i was at was shitty i m sure it was after new years.  the jumps had god awlful flat landings.  the box (it was like a up flat picnic table with three levels droped strait to flat)  i heard the after season thing was a big waste (should have been done at rt instead.   all in all i have no faith in any resort maintained by snowtime

I didn't visit this year or last year but the year before that was pretty good.  You guys had some unique rails and a couple of small jumps.  All I can tell you right now is to check out BIg Boulder as soon as they open next season and try and do what they are doing......

You should have plenty of time to do that, Last year Boulder opened November 10th

well I didn't get promoted until the end of january begining of febuary so I'm sure your right.  The first jam I was in charge of was the Witter mormorial jam.

yeah Ive heard a lot of good about b.b.  I gave away passes to a friend for there cause I didn't have time or assets to go.  I want to try to grt there next year.  I meet the mt. manager Jesse he seams cool.

I will Start with the good stuff, and nuboss, please actually read this,because i'm putting some time into it.

After you stepped in, the park definately DEFINATELY improved. i cannot stress that enough. you stepped it up big time, and the transformation of the park was truly impressive considering the short time you had to work with. I think the jumps were fine. i especially loved the second, sort of stepoverish one. Continue with that style i think it worked best. the jumps were definately fun once they had landings, and that cannon box at the end was sick, reaaallly fun. so was that gap jump to the landing. The bottom pad worked really well in my opinion.

I would try to put a third jump in towards the top, get that three jump action going. Maybe go Stepdown 20ish feet, kinda poppy into a 30 true table, into a 40 stepoverstyle. IF YOU WANT TO DRAW THE PARK CROWD, BIGGER, SMOOTH JUMPS ARE NEEDED. and if they can't be big, make em poppy.

As for rails, just pay attention to them. None of this ride on, totally buried bullshit. i get it, you need to have beginner features, but don't have beginner set ups to "expert"(god i hate that term) rails.i say right at the turn, with the exception of the bottom pad, which i would like to see replicated), focus on rails. vary the set up. get urban style and regular style lips mixed in, and just mix it up.


Worf was right, the events sucked. I know you don't have a lot of say, but don't hold rail jams on stalker, ever again. Also, you don't want to have features in the rail jam that are neccesarily difficult to slide, but allow poeple to really showcase rail tricks.

and, once again i know not really your department, but push for a goddamn park pass. have the angel drop park require a special pass to enter, and have stalker not require one. and enforce it. so many park and pipe crew guys do nothing, so just have one of them do nothing but check park passes.



and you should really aprrecaite this, because i won't even be riding whitetail next year, as its college time fo me. but when i come back for christmas, shit better be legit.

oh yeah variety is key. thats why i only rode like 3-4 days at whitetail once things started coming together. I like to be able to session different style of things throughout the day, instead of lapping the same features. so variety is key, as well as separating the more dificult terrain from the easy stuff.

I went to whitetail a few times this year. 

I'll throw it down for you.

I absolutely love the S-Rail.  S rails are hard to find these days and it is a lot of fun.  The first jump needed a longer landed.  Like Ewill said, the second jump was a lot of fun!  I also enjoyed the up box at the end of the season like the last hit. 

Please get new rails! Buy them, build them, pay someone to build them!!!!!  I cannot stress this enough.  I have been to Whitetail for the past 3-4 season and I have only seen maybe 2 new rails over those seasons.  The new ones are pretty lame too as being a skier.  the brick box one (with the side steps or whatever) is absolutely horrible in my opinion.  Along with the Jersey wall, i dont really understand that.  But if you get new rails, make your landings longer and pack a ton of features on that slope, whitetail would be good!  I did see improvement after you stepped into the position.  With the park length on angel drop you could have a killer park if you utilize it well enough. 

Hey thanks a lot.  I appreciate the feed back and you spoke so highly of some of my favorite features this year.  As for a mandatory park pass, well thats something I'm pushing for but am having a hard time selling it to my higher ups.  their stand is that their is to much general traffic on angle drop for that and it would cost to much to post some one there.  another problem is sometimes the park is the only way to the bottom.  I think I might try to utilize a park etiquette safety training program with some kind of an incentive for completion.  my hope is this will at least make people aware of things like flow of a jump line and not stopping behind features.

wow! some one actually likes the S-rail.  cool.  not to many mess with that one.  Yeah I'm trying to put together a new arsenal or rails and boxes.  I can't give any details yet because I don't have approval yet and I'm not gonna state things I can't deliver.  But I have a whole 6 months or better to think about it.  I'll post things as they develop but it will be awhile.

first off i noticed a huge improvement in the jumps when you stepped in. The landing we're 10 time better and the second step up kinda jump was really fun and floaty great for floaty 3s and 5s. The only problem i had was the knuckle on the first hit at somepoints during the year was to high expecially on the skiers left. but overall good work. angel drop is a great slope for a park. i hope next year to see an extra jump or two added. there is certinaly the space and speed for it.

rails on the other hand tend to be weak. there is never a good variety. and there was only one new good feature that got introduced this year....being the new flat box. i also noticed that at one time there were like 2 or 3 short little 8-10 ft rails. to be honest this is supposed to be the advanced park and things like that just attract people that dont ski park. and they wont even hit the rails they'll just ruin all the lips and roll over them. plus those tiny rails are a waste of space. they belong in the mini park. so next year i'd like to see a lot of fresh new rails/ and boxes.
regarding boxes. some of the boxes whitetail has a really fat. like they're almost butter boxes. id cut down on the width of them when you build new ones. id make a foot or so in width.

one last thing. on the weekends the park was maintanied way better than it is on weekdays. i understand that obviously most of ur buisness comes on weekends...but what about all of seasonpass holders that come up a few time midweek during the day that are skiing park?

but good work i for sure noticed an improvement when u took charge. looking forward to a sick season next year.

also an urban style rail and some kink rails or boxes would be fun.
also a park website that actually gets updated would be nice. so we can see whats up.

yeah, the web site is pretty weak and its not my responsibilitie.  they had the first comp of the year on their (which was very weak, and not my handy work) and they had that on the site all year.  i'll bet its still on their.  As for rails, boxes and other features I'm working for a new custom selection to rotate in, out and around  the park.  Thanks for your input.  As things develop I'll post things as they develop in the future.

ok, now i am fucking pissed. A double chair going just up the park? DAMN IT. i spent 4 years sitting in that god awful line for the express chair, and now when i leave, we get a double chair just for the park. fuck my life.

I did not make my way up to whitetail at all this year except for the end of the year jam / jump.  I honestly thought that it wasn't that bad other than the whole orginization aspect.  I would make a lot more trips to whitetail if the park was even a little better.  Boulders park is a lot of fun and a lot bigger than I thought a park / jumps could ever be in PA.  I love huge jumps, but I know that those take a lot of snow and it doesn't make a lot of sence to build a 70 ft jump when 10 people will hit it all year with several morons trying it and getting hurt (making the idea of a park even worse)   Whitetail does have a lot of fun little jibs.  I had several fun days there a few years ago.    I would just try to make everything flow so you can hit 10 -12 features in a run.  A few jumps with a lot of pop would be fun as well, maybe a little hip.  I think whitetail has a lot of potential with the layout of the mountain.  As for the park pass, it might help.  I ride at springs a lot and they had one 2 years ago.  It was pretty much pointless since you just had to sign a form and watch a 10 minute video.  Paying for a park pass would only be worth it if there were a lot of huge features which I don't really see the point of whitetail.  I would say to ditch the halfpipe, it is a waste of snow.  If the park at whitetail improves, I will be sure to make a few trips this year.  I think it could be a fun park.  Good luck with the whole park manager thing, that has to be one of the worst jobs.  Groom all night, get no sleep, then everyone hates on the park. 

You have a good source for your info.  For years every rear people have talked rumors of tow ropes and j-bars but it never happened and I never heard it from a reliable source but this one is the real thing.  Come this season we will have our own lift. It will be great for on weekends.

The half pipe.  It is a shameful creature at whitetail.  There is just no love for it(some call it money).  However somewhere in the horizon I see birth taking place.  The birth of a new creature, one to be respected.  But don't count on it this season.

wasnt there this year.... but get rid of rusty rails. i dont have my tetanus shot!!!

last year i found the rails to be fun!  they were pretty smooth (even though a lot were many years old).  Most rails slid fine..in my opinion..gain some more stock features (ie: flat boxes, flat bars, flat down rails/boxes. fdf rainbox etc.)  many of the features seemed more snowboarder oriented.. the up box at the end of the season or alteast when i was there for the patomac rail jam was money!!!!! so much fun and a legit landing!  an awesome setup and basically resembled the x games up box..so if you can do that, more power to ya!

Thanks for the compliments.  I really loved that up box at the end too.  It just had the best landing, you could launch off it like a cannon and never run out of real estate.  I rode a similar feature setup with a picnic table and bonk barrel some place else but it had no landing, just flat snow.  It buckled my knees clear to my chin.  I've heard a lot of complaints about the landings after rails in the past, and that is going to change for this coming season at least if we are blessed with the temperatures or snow we need to build awesome features. 

It would be great if you could elaborate on the differnce betwen a snowboarder or skier oriented feature.  That would help me better serve people in the future.

Here's what you should do




Hire me for the weekends to build! ;)

I haven't been out in a while but do you still have the pipe with the bend in it?

hahahaha, that's funny, cuz i was thinking the same thing..... that to me was back in the day....... I learned 540's in that pipe (snowboarding) and that was back when they didn't even have rails and boxes yet, just jumps and table tops, and snowboarders threw snowballs at skiers for coming through the park (signs said: "Snowboarders only, no skiers", wow)

well that's great news right there.

I haven't been at whitetail in a while cause I've been at school, and winter break was spent at tremblant.  but here's one suggestion I think whitetail always needed

your jumps were always so fuckin big but have no pop to them.  I remember there was one that I would have to bomb the entire park to actually hope to clear.  big jump with no lip = shitty.  you miss the whole park getting to it, and when you fall, it hurts a lot because you're going so fast, since so much speed is necessary.  you don't need a mountain of snow to get some good air.

I dunno what to tell you since I'm not very good, but in my mind the perfect setup would be 2-3 smaller jumps with some good pop and then throw a huge-ass table at the end for the good kids.

The jumps on the right side. 
that was a nice line.
not too big but tons of pop.
i would ski whitetail more if you had features like this.....

i ski whitetail on a weekly basis, but pretty much all that needs to be said has been:  new, well-designed and constructed rails which need to be varied during the season, keep the 6' flatbars out of the main park, and put in some more, poppier jumps up top.  i dont know what you could possibly do to help the shitshow of a pipe, but blowing some snow on it might be a good start, as well as grooming it more than once a season.  the few times its been open the last few seasons, its been unrideable due to terrible grooming and noobs going strait down the middle.  i know our pipe cutter is ancient, but when there are ledges that stick strait out of the walls and catch the noses of your skis carving up, thats a problem. 
now that ive got everthing i hated about the park out of the way, ill say that once you stepped in, there was literally an overnight improvement in the park, and the jump quality skyrocketted.  i talked to you once or twice over the season, and its great to have someone who actually rides park managing it.  so props on a great start, and i hope that you can help make the park into what those of us who have ridden here for years have always known it had the potential to be.

finally a chair at the park i've been dealing wit no chair for years i even remember talk of putting a magic carpet at the pipe my advice good flow and good kickers that toss you out not up. go ride boulder ian does a great job up there

i like the idea of having two lips on one kicker.
also, combo stuff up.  i know you guys have the creativity.  a good park would really set whitetail above the other two resort.