Stowe Week 1

For the first week at Stowe we worked with the terrain park staff. Personally I am not a big fan of terrain parks, but Stowe's parks have creative features that many guests can enjoy, and parks are a very popular part of the industry. Friday we had to set up features in the North Slope park. Kurt, park manager & designer, would drive the cat with a rail feature on the forks of the plow. The park crew would then hold the feature in place while Kurt pushes/scraps snow around it so that it is securely in the snow. He would then push snow to the front of the feature for the lip. Then backing up using the plow to form the takeoff jump. The crew would then shovel and rake the jump, around the feature, and the landing so that everything is square and smooth. Stowe put in a huge bus that was at Okemo. We raked all around the bus and then tested it out. It was a pretty sweet feature that I liked hitting even though I'm not a park rider.
Saturday we started out by raking the features in the mini park. The grooming from over night messes some of the features up so we have to resquare the takeoffs and level out any snow that builds up around the feature. Park staff life isn't so bad. Rake, ride, rake, ride. The raking and spray painting around the lip are very important because it keeps the feature safe and looking "BA"
In the afternoon we headed over to the bag check on Spruce side and worked with the Mercedes vendor. Mercedes had 3 vehicles that could be test driven by anyone who has a valid license and who is at least 21. The test drivers would get 2 lift tickets to Stowe after returing the keys. Our job was to escort the test driver to the vehicle and show them how the car works. One guy had a car out for about 45 minutes. The test drive should only take 15-20 minutes. They were about to call the cops, but he returned before doing so. Next week Drew might test drive a car so we might get passes..that would be sweet.
Mike gave us an overview of what we'd be doing next week, I'll be doing administration and lift mechanics. Sounds like another exciting weekend to come.