Whitecap adds terrain park

By TOM LAVENTURE

tlaventure@yourdailyglobe.com

UPSON, Wis. - Whitecap Mountains Ski Resort has stepped up its game in offering free stylers some challenges this season with its first terrain park.

"Flightcap 1," a new slope-style freestyle terrain park toward the end of the bottom of St. Moritz hill near the ski rental shack and lift, was built during the recent extreme cold snap and has been open to riders for about a week. It was designed and continues to be improved by assistant manager Ben Bonitz, a recent addition to the resort who comes from Eau Claire.

"We didn't have to move any earth, which was nice," Bonitz said. "This was all built strictly from the snow that we pulled right off the lake out here."

During the recent extreme cold snap Bonitz and his crew worked around the clock moving snow with the loaders and groomers along with making new snow, he said. The goal was to create something fun and unique to the terrain while also keeping it within industry standards.

"It's a fun park," said Andy Wians, a Whitecap snowboarder from Eau Claire. "They have a variety of features for different skill levels, with three hits all in a row, so you can connect some stuff together and make a good run."

The design provides an optional chute for people coming down St. Moritz. The skiers enter the upper tier "rollers" with a simple set of jumps, rails and boxes and gravity takes them to second and third tier rollers with more complicated sets for intermediate and expert level riders on the sides and an introductory jump in the middle.

"The middle roller is to get skiers comfortable with a 5-to-10 foot jump to get some air awareness to learn their boundaries," Bonitz said. "It's a little scary to send somebody into the air for the first time so you always want to start small, that's for sure."

The last roller on the third tier has the largest jump, he said. It's at around 20 feet right now and with ongoing work it could potentially reach around 35 feet by the end of the season, he said.

"As the season goes and as we adjust things our riders get better and their skills that they have get better," Bonitz said. "So, we want to keep up with them to try and keep them interested and keep the difficulty increasing over the year."

The terrain park isn't new to the area, he said. In fact, Whitecap is among the last of the hills to build one between Duluth and the Upper Peninsula. A snowboard instructor is also on staff.

The freestyle skiers and boarders have developed a culture all of their own that is increasingly growing in popularity. If Whitecap is going to continue capturing the interest of younger skiers from Illinois, southern and western Wisconsin and the Twin Cities it is important to have terrain parks where they can improve and stay challenged, he said.

"We want to keep up with the competition for sure. We can get left in the dust by all of our competitors," Bonetz said.

Bonetz said his first big project after being hired at Whitecap was to create a professional style terrain park. He had previous experience building "free parks" in western Wisconsin, but Whitecap was the first to give him loaders, groomers and snow guns, Bonetz said. It was as though someone had given an "urban novice" a set of professional tools, he said.

The terrain park is a work in progress all through ski season, he said. They continue to build the jumps higher and make other changes based on feedback from the riders.

"This is something new and freestyle riders should be looking forward to at Whitecap," Bonetz said. "It's just nothing like we've offered before and we want to go after the terrain park culture."

Rachel Urban, of Hastings, Minnesota, said she enjoyed the terrain park.

"I usually like riding natural features but this is a great 'up' to their game here at Whitecap," Urban said, "Just because they added more elements for people to hit, from starting off doing the little jumps to hitting the rails - good at 'em."

To capture some of the excitement of the XGames snowboard competition about to start in Colorado, Bonetz said Whitecap is planning its own slope-style competition for all levels of riders to demonstrate their skills at rails, jumps and tricks sometime in March. They plan to have cash prizes and lots of side entertainment for the spectators as well. Watch the Whitecap Facebook page for updates.

"Get on out and have some fun with us," Bonetz said. "The weather is nice and even if you're not interested in taking on the terrain park it's fun to watch others do their best."