Replying to Mountain bike buying advice

Hey NS,

I'm going to be living in Aspen this summer and am looking for a mountain bike for bike trails as well to use at Snowmass bike park.

I am looking for some advice and/or recommendations as I am very new to mountain biking and all of the knowledge I have has been accumulated the last few days via google search.

I think want a full suspension bike to handle the bike park with good disc brakes and probably an aluminum body. Other than that, I'm not sure which features I should be looking for. People say you can get a better quality hard tail for less than a full suspension bike, but I'm not sure how those "higher quality" bikes would affect me.

I am 5'9" and 155 lbs.
I am looking in the $500-1200 range Trail Bikes.

Any advice, suggestions, tips, places to buy, deals, etc. would be helpful!