Terrain park trends come and go, changing as often as the whims of the young people who (mostly) populate them. One minute rainbow rails and plaid jackets are all the rage, the next it's flat-down-flats and super-tight pants.

One thing never seems to change, though-riders always appreciate high quality features. If it's built well and attractive, they'll use it. If it sucks, they mostly won't. It will sit there sad and neglected.

Terrain parks are serious business, as the industry's heightened focus on safety shows. But they must be fun at the same time. (Isn't fun the point?) SAM spoke with some of the country's top builders and managers to find out what's hot this year in park design and features and to see how some of the top resorts are working to make their parks high quality, innovative, and safer all at the same time.

OVERALL DESIGN

Josh Lempert of Snowgrind terrain park design sees "a lot of requests for signature theme parks." New England, where he is based, has many resorts competing for the same customers, and themed parks are one way to stand out. Last year, he says, Snowgrind designed a park at Blue Mountain, Pa., with a schoolyard theme. This year, they are planning a construction-themed park. "We're getting a lot of feedback about it; I guess a lot people went to the resort just to check it out," he says.

The themed park's features were quite advanced, and the entrance to it was right beside a six-person chair, so Lempert helped devise a way to slow down gawker traffic in the park: a set of stairs up to the park entrance. This forced users to take off their equipment to climb up the stairs into the clearly marked park entrance. It worked "really well," he says, and helped reduce traffic, accidents and collisions in the park.

At Mammoth Mountain, park manager Oren Tanzer was in the midst of creating a series of sponsor-branded signature features when we reached him. It's a trend that has gained prevalence in parks across North America in recent years: resorts are looking to boost corporate sponsorships, and brands are looking for more opportunities to connect with their target audience.

Mammoth had existing partnerships with snowboarding heavyweights Quiksilver, Vans and Dragon goggles, and worked with them to create branded signature features. The brands actually drove the design of the features; Tanzer and his crew made them a reality. "It's not just about dollars," says Tanzer. "We want the brands to be as involved as possible."

Both Ryan Neptune, park designer and founder of Planet Snow Tools, and Flynn Seddon, park manager at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna, B.C., emphasize the strategy of building to natural terrain rather than building in spite of it. Be realistic about what you can and cannot successfully build, he advises. Don't build what you don't have the snow or manpower to support.

RAILS

Rails come in and out of fashion quickly. By all accounts, "circus" style rails and boxes (i.e., creative in all the wrong ways) are pretty much on the outs right now, says Andy Lenart, terrain park manager at Bear Creek Mountain Resort, Pa. What's in? Clean and simple design.

Isabelle Falardeau, terrain park supervisor at Aspen/Snowmass, is on the same wavelength. "I think we're going back to basics with high-quality long and flat rails and boxes," she says. "They are versatile, they can be built into combinations, and they allow for more intricate tricks."

Ryan Neptune predicts a return to the older-style, street-based barrel or tube-shaped handrail. Many of the kids in today's parks don't remember when tube-style rails were the norm, he says, and will be stoked to see something "new," while older riders will recognize the retro comeback. He also looks for fewer rails as the trend fades slightly, and other features, such as creative jibs, hips and spines, come more into favor.

JIBS & FEATURES

What types of creative features? Wallrides, says Neptune-everyone's asking for wallrides. These have been around for a while and have made our trend watch several times, but it's a trend that has been given new life this year. Why?

Well, snowboard videos have a lot to do with it. Last year, the Mack Dawg Productions movie Follow Me Around featured a stand-out part by superstar Jeremy Jones that upped the ante in urban jibbing with his innovative wall riding and use of the urban landscape. This style is emulated all over this year's crop of video. If anything sparks a trend, it's this kind of play in the videos.

What makes a great wallride? "In my opinion, wall rides need to have a synthetic snow surface-that's what I would rather see on every wallride these days, instead of just a plastic surface to slide on," Neptune says. "[The plastic makes it] somewhat luck of the draw for anyone who's intermediate or less, whereas on a synthetic snow surface, they can pretty much carve it up just like you would on a skateboard."

Neptune sees lots of room for creativity in wallrides yet. "I've been trying to make curved wallrides that are just like bowls in a skateboard park," he says. "You also have a banked top that will keep your center of gravity in the wall instead of falling over to the other side. With kids, you want to try to regulate their speed, and they need that little extra something to keep them from going over."

Park riders are increasingly into "simple objects," says Bear Creek's Lenart, a trend that Josh Lempert sees as well. Rounded garbage-can lids, pylons, and other urban-style features have been around for a long time, but they're more sophisticated now. Both Lempert and Aspen/Snowmass's Falardeau are building this type of simple jib onto pyramid or cone-shaped piles of snow to make them more attractive and a bit safer, too (as this creates a takeoff and landing). If you're looking to introduce these types of features into your park, make them accessible to more than just advanced riders, with techniques like Neptune's curved, banked and surfaced wallrides.

JUMPS

As long as people have been jumping off man-made objects on man-made equipment, there's been debate about how best to get people off the ground and back on again. Jumps have come to the forefront in 2007, and there has been much discussion as to what constitutes the best kind of jump for public consumption.

NSAA is preparing an update to its terrain park guide (see separate story on page 28); it will offer "generally accepted" guidelines for jump building. One suggestion: building jumps based more on distance than height.

So what's working with the builders we talked to? Seddon, who worked with park managers at Grouse Mountain and Whistler Blackcomb (all part of the Canada West Ski Association, whose terrain park progression system the NSAA committees examined when working on the new guide), says his team builds all the jumps at Big White with "rolled-off backs" and never uses cheese wedges. The main reason for this is so that a user (especially an unintentional user, such as a child or novice) doesn't free-fall off the wedge. It also has to do with optics: this style of jump looks more inviting.

How a jump looks is a big deal to riders, says Tanzer. A jump with groomed sides shows riders that it has been cared for and gives them more confidence. And confident riders are definitely a good thing-when the stakes get higher, uncertainty is a recipe for disaster. Plus, he says, groomed sides give riders something extra to jib on if they so choose.

At Aspen/Snowmass, Falardeau says, her team is increasingly building two kinds of jumps in the beginner to intermediate parks: "true tables" and "Elliot jumps" (not their official name, she laughs, but nicknamed after Elliot Cone, now a member of the Snow Park Technologies team).

"The true table is like the shape of a computer keyboard button," she explains. "There's no raised takeoff to it -it's kind of like a rectangular shaped pile. The takeoff ... isn't raised above the table, so you don't get as much air and you don't come down from the sky onto the landing." The Elliot jump is a true table, but with a rounded knuckle that fills in the area between the takeoff and the landing. "It makes them less scary to look at and makes them lower consequence," she adds.

HALFPIPES

A few years ago, the future of the 22-foot halfpipe seemed uncertain-the trendsetters we talked to were unsure it would be adopted in a widespread fashion. Fast-forward to now and things have definitely changed. Most of the major competitions have switched or are switching to the 22-foot pipe, and shovels are already in the ground at Cypress Mountain, B.C., to dig the 22-foot pipe the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Why the switch? Well, competition pipes are being shaped better now, and pro riders dig the big walls and big transitions. The early 22-footers had a little too much vert, which made it tougher to get big air. Now, the design has been refined and air is no longer a problem. Some barriers remain: new cutters are expensive and the bigger pipe requires a steeper grade, as riders need more speed to get up the walls.

A training seminar at Bretton Woods in September brought up an important management tip regarding halfpipes: fencing is key, especially for earth-dug pipes, as people can unintentionally ski or ride into them if they are not clearly marked or set off. Fencing alerts all guests to look out for something unusual and to keep their heads up.

A more concentrated focus on safety this year-and what exactly it means-has once again resurrected the conversation of where exactly the line is between "safety" and "fun" in parks. However, as the park builders here have shown, there are always ways to integrate safety-minded design into the features you build.