In the beginning, there was snow and snow begat sliding, on skis, boards, tubes and other devices. And, the sliders saw this was good. But, they wanted more, and that begat machines that shot snow from guns, and the sliding season grew longer, and the sliders saw that this was good. But still, they wanted more, and that begat plastic surfaces to make the sliding season last all year. And, the sliders tried the plastic, but they saw that it was not good.
Until now.

Today, products from New Zealand, Italy and England allow sliding that truly mimics snow, and won’t even scour sliders when they crash. Or, so their makers say. These products—SkiTrax, Neveplast and Snowflex chief among them—are slowly being introduced to U.S. ski hills, tubing parks and active entertainment centers. The hope, of course, is to create warm weather skiing/snowboarding/ tubing that yields summertime fun for guests and additional revenue for resorts—and, urban-based centers, replete with terrain parks, that could introduce snowsports to non-ski populations.


HISTORY: PLASTIC NOT-SO-FANTASTIC
The idea of creating a dry-land, warm-weather ski surface is not new. Dieter Sturm, U.S. distributor for Snowflex, a carpet style synthetic surface, relates that “in the last 25 years, upwards of 50 products have been developed to simulate a snow surface for skiing and boarding. They had the best intentions, but they all pretty much failed.”

According to Sturm and others, these products failed because the surfaces lacked lubricity, didn’t allow skiers to set an edge and were nastily abrasive when fallen upon. But, within the last ten years, products have been formulated that address those problems, beginning with SkiTrax, a plastic tile developed in New Zealand. “It was originally intended for summer dry-slope skiing in places like Auckland because they wanted to introduce skiing to the general public in urban areas," says John Jacobs, whose company, Reliable Racing, sells SkiTrax.

“It never left the runway down there,” Jacobs recounts, “but lift ops guys here have embraced it. A number of resorts use SkiTrax for their chairlift on- and off-ramps. They don’t have to worry so much about snow building up on the ramp. Skiers can slide on it, turn on it, and get out of way. Operations-wise, it makes things a lot easier.”

SkiTrax is an interlocking, injection molded tile. The nine-by-nine inch tiles snap together. It is, according to Jacobs, specifically engineered with high lubricity, and excellent UV properties that prevent brittleness or decomposition.

SkiTrax remained “a kind of latent product” used mainly by lift operations, says Jacobs, until “about seven or eight years ago, when freestyle summer venues discovered it.” It was installed for freestyle training at the Lake Placid and Park City Olympic venues, and at the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club. Still, notes Jacobs, it was only used on jump in-runs for straight ahead sliding.

At approximately $7 per tile, Jacobs describes SkiTrax as “kind of expensive.” Installation, he says, is easy. “It snaps together quickly. On dirt, we suggest you put down a geo-textile underneath for erosion mitigation and to keep the tiles white. On grass, there’s not much worry. You can screw it onto wood, or use ground pegs.”

Still, to date, North American ski/slide installations of SkiTrax number just two: at the Hale Scouting Reserve outside Tulsa, Oklahoma, where boy scouts can earn a merit badge on a teaching-level hill; and recently, Snow Tools has used it to make terrain park features for summertime use at Mt. Hood.

“I’ve realized,” Jacobs says, “that what’s becoming hot in the industry is tubing facilities that run in summertime.”


TUBING FOR THE YOU-TUBE GENERATION
And, down Virginia way, summer tubing has indeed taken a strong foothold, using Italian-made Neveplast. “Neveplast is a plastic product that has little nubs sticking up,” explains Bryce Resort mountain manager Ryan Locher, who also represents Neveplast in the U.S. “It comes in four-foot by six-foot sections that snap together and screw down to the ground.”

Neveplast’s construction yields excellent slide-ability. “The plastic has a sliding agent inside—chemicals that combine with the plastic,” says Locher, “and the plastic doesn’t have much surface area. We use fewer fibers, and they stand straight up, so you’re sliding only on top. There’s not much friction.”

Additionally, a proprietary sliding agent “that’s thick, like a honey material, and biodegradable,” adds lubrication. The result is an excellent surface for warm-weather tubing, using hard-bottom tubes.

Steve Showalter, general manager at Massanutten Resort, installed a Neveplast tube run three summers ago, at the resort’s winter tube park site. In winter, running up to twelve, 660-foot lanes, Showalter estimates that the resort sells between 60,000 and 65,000 sessions. In summer, using just two lanes, the yield approximates 25,000. “That’s pretty good, considering we offer 128 summertime activities,” he says. “It’s been very popular.” So popular that Showalter added four adjacent inflatable attractions to augment the attraction.

He estimates the installation cost about $90,000 for the two tracks, and notes that “we made that back in the first summer,” including the cost of six staff to run the tubing/inflatables operation, and a four-day re-installation process each spring. “It’s easy to install,” he says. “Just start at the top and be smart enough to put it in straight.”

David Vance, recreation director at Canaan Valley Resort, is equally enthused about their 306-foot, two-lane Neveplast tube park. “We’ve set it up where we run scenic chairlift rides, so people riding the lifts see people tubing,” he says. “We installed it for summer 2007, and it’s been very popular. Within another year or so we’ll have to add more lanes.”

The construction includes triangular berms on both sides to keep the tubes inside the track. “It’s perfectly safe,” Vance comments. “We don’t allow people to lie in the tubes, and as long as you sit, you can’t catch any body parts on anything. I’ve never seen anyone fall out. People are more out of control in winter.”

Neveplast has had the tubing product in North America since 2003, according to Locher, with the biggest installations at the Amesbury Sports Park in Massachusetts and the Seacoast Fun Park in Maine. But, the company has more than 200 installations worldwide, including ski hills in Korea and Italy. Locher, who has a ski racing background, became a Neveplast believer after skiing on it in Europe. “You can lay the skis over on edge just like on packed corduroy,” he says.

Still, to date, no ski/ride applications using any warm-weather surface has been built in North America. That, however, is about to change.


GOING TO SCHOOL ON SNOWFLEX
Ryan Locher became inspired by Neveplast after skiing it in Italy. But, Jerry Falwell, Jr., Chancellor of Virginia’s Liberty University, was inspired by genuine Utah powder. After skiing there, he proposed that the school install its own ski slope. The school had the land. It had an anonymous donor willing to fund the construction. And, it already supported a plethora of recreational facilities, ranging from ice rinks and mountain biking trails to an archery range and a paintball field. A ski slope would fit right in. He turned the project over to director of auxiliary services, Lee Beaumont.

Okay, at first glance, the idea of a southern-located college spending about $2 million to install a ski hill leans towards the absurd. And, when Beaumont considered a facility with artificial snowmaking, it proved absurd. “We looked at making snow, and saw that we might be able to ski for twenty-five to thirty days a year,” he says. He turned to dry-land surfaces.

The process of choosing a surface took two years, ending when Beaumont traveled to Europe to test Snowflex. “Guys were doing three-sixties, flips, and turns on it,” he recalls with excitement. “It had the ability to do a lot of things that you’d normally see in Colorado or someplace.”

Snowflex is manufactured in England by Briton Engineering Developments. According to U.S. rep Sturm, the company has been involved with winter sports for 25 years. Snowflex, he says, “was developed after about fifteen years on the drawing board.” Briton now has some 30 projects operating, the largest of which is a 1,000-foot installation in Noeux Les Mines, France.

“A lot are mountain properties that are trying to fill in different activities in summer—chairlift rides, ziplines, mountain biking,” Sturm says. “Snowflex is applicable to their primary business—skiing and snowboarding.”

Briton, he explains, set out to design a surface that allowed maximum forward speed and edge control and had shock absorption for falls, no surface holes or voids to cause falls, and no sharp edges or surface metals to cause abrasions or cuts. The result is a four-layer carpet system. The top layer is a UV-resistant monofilament reputed to be stronger than Teflon. Underneath that are a shock absorbing layer, an impervious membrane and a binding layer. An integrated watering system is used to lubricate, create speed and reduce equipment wear.

But, here’s the rub. Installing Snow­flex is far more complex than the other products. “It’s an engineering project,” says Sturm. “You don’t simply roll it down. It’s engineered into the side of slopes. Once the slope is contoured and the earthworks is done, complex water systems are laid out with piping and thousands of misting nozzles, and drainage systems are installed under it, too.”

Although Snowflex is a carpet, Sturm says it remains perfectly static, without bulging or other problems that plagued previous carpet-style products. Yet, Sturm points out, it’s designed in component form so that specific sections can be removed for replacement. Its stability allows it to be shaped much like snow. Although skepticism might be an understandable initial reaction, Briton’s photos and videos from the Noeux Les Mines installation show a halfpipe, a huge kicker and even a mogul field—and people who look very much like they are actually skiing/riding.

None of this comes cheaply. “Every project is custom,” Sturm says, “and there are probably twelve different cost elements in any project. It’s not uncommon for a thousand hours in design work to go into a slope before it even breaks ground. That’s how sophisticated this is.” Thus, an average cost ranges from $1 million to $4 million.

Still, Sturm contends that it’s money well spent. “People might not realize the benefits to their organization,” he reasons. “Synthetic slopes, based on expenditures, make quite a bit of sense. For example: a property might spend two million to upgrade a lift so skiers can go uphill faster. But, how is that going to increase revenues? What would happen if they invested that two million in a Snowflex slope? They’d be creating summertime revenues for slope time, rentals, lessons, food and beverage, more hotel rooms—and they’d extend the beginning or end of the winter season.”

Liberty University’s installation, scheduled to open in March 2009, will be America’s first full synthetic ski slope. It will cover an acre with a 550-foot run, jumps, rails, tubing lanes, a novice slope area with its own surface tow, and a carpet lift for the main slope. A base lodge is also being built. The school, Lee Beaumont indicates, will operate the facility in a manner typical of a skating rink, with timed sessions for public access and student access, and affordable pricing of about $10 to $12 per two- or three-hour session.

Do these surfaces really work? They seem to be working well at Snowflex facilities in the British Isles and France, and at Neveplast installations in Italy and elsewhere. “There’s some holdover from the old days that synthetic surfaces aren’t good,” says Sturm. “But, there’s a great benefit to be had in re-visiting the concept and looking at the new technology that’s out there.” Only time will tell.

FOR MORE INFO

1) Dieter Sturm, Snowflex, (262) 245-6594, DSturmFX@aol.com

2) Ryan Locher, (540) 856-2121 x228; cell: (540) 798-6955, locher@neveplast.it

3) John Jacobs, Reliable Racing Supply, (518) 793-5677; cell (518) 744-9460, john@reliableracing.com