Snowsports Media Flies High
by Josh Rhea
Salt Lake City, Utah (August 30, 2002) -- Can snowsports industry editors and writers huck? In a hilarious and somewhat dubious plot this week, Ski Utah's Nathan Rafferty was determined to find out. Ski Utah, the marketing and representative organization for Utah's famed ski areas, invited 12 representatives from the country's top ski and snowboard magazines (POWDER, SNOWBOARDER, Freeze, Freeskier, Ski, Skiing, and Transworld Snowboarding) to Park City and the Utah Olympic Park for a day's session on the freestyle water ramps.
Along with willing representatives from most of Utah's ski areas, the challenge
was on to see if the people who write, edit, and generally spew about how great
skiing and boarding are could perform outside the boundaries of their cubicles
and keyboards.
After a night of food and beverage indulgence, the editors' bleary eyes turned on the full horror...err, glory...of the Olympic Park's freestyle training facility. Four massive ramps faced a 750,000-gallon pool (unheated), ranging in size from a mere 10 feet off the water's surface to a ramp with dimensions larger than regulation jumps used in professional aerial competitions. Several trampolines surrounded by padding, a "jumpless" ramp, and a mini-ramp into the pool completed the impressive array.