Again this year we asked resorts from around the world to send us news and pictures of their latest and greatest freestyle terrain ideas.

NEW THIS YEAR: We offered two categories for resorts to enter: FEATURES and EVENTS. Now it’s up to you to pick your faves.

FEATURES

This year we had 23 great Feature entries from around the world.

2. light ‘em up!
Scott McCune and his crew from Nordic Mountain, Wisc., built this 19-stair set with two down rails (one flat stock and one round bar) called the Element Mobile Illuminate Stair Case, which was donated by Element Mobile. The feature was lit up every night for skiers and riders.


3. slice and spread
Brighton Resort in Utah built this mega butter knife for its annual Volcom Peanut Butter and Rail Jam event. This season, the area plans to build a giant jar of jam and a loaf of bread.


4. dish it out
June Mountain, Calif., serves up an 18-foot satellite dish. The crew found the dish at a nearby scrap yard and installed it in the park. It has been one of the park’s most popular features. The dish is fiberglass, so it wears quickly on the rim, but as the cable companies change out satellite dishes in the Eastern Sierra, the crew at June Mountain happily collect more.


5. options galore
Thredbo, Australia, created the Thredbo Toyota One Hit Wonder—a 95-foot table-top-style jump with a 65-foot step-over jump to the left of the main jump that riders can use to transfer to the big jump’s landing. On the right-hand side of the main jump was a wedge-to-wedge-style snow wall ride with a quarterpipe in between.


6. hop on the bus, gus
Granite George in N.H., adopted this 1969 round-nose bus and placed it in the park. From time to time, people will get in the bus...as in this photo here, with trainer Patrick Morrison gapping over them. The bus became such an icon that Granite George restored another bus and uses it as a marketing tool in the off-season, sponsoring skateboard, surf and other action sports events in the area. ­


7. cubitron
With late-season snow left over from the Dew Tour, the Killington, Vt., park crew built The Cube for a Meathead Production shoot. A combination of wall rides, butter pads and quarterpipes allowed skiers to hit the feature in a variety ways. Each outside quarterpipe was 15 feet tall, leading to a block that stood 20 feet off the trail. A backside landing was also built to accommodate skiers as they transferred over the middle block off of the quarterpipe.


8. heavy Lifting
Ski Roundtop, Pa., fabricated a 3,000-pound feature out of concrete, steel and wood. The sliding surface is pure concrete. The urban feature lights up at night with the use of gels and numerous floodlights that project a variety of colors. The feature was constructed for the park’s fourth annual Scion/Signal Snow Tour.


9. the great wall
This close-out wall ride comes from the crew at Mt. Bachelor, Ore. A rider can slide the wall, slide the wall and air to the rail, slide the rail and drop into the wall, stall on the close out and drop into the wall, and so on. The feature follows the park’s street-influenced theme for the upcoming season.


10. wait for it
A decommissioned New Jersey bus shelter was all the crew at Mountain Creek, N.J., needed to create a unique feature for their Under Armour 3rd Rail Jam. The feature was reinforced and had a slidable top added to its roof.


11. over the bridge
Snowgrind’s Josh Lempert created this feature for Shawnee Peak, Maine. The rainbow bridge is 36 feet long and 8 feet wide, with multiple ways to ride it for all levels of park riders. Shawnee’s long footbridge to the base area was the inspiration behind this unique feature.


12. mounds of Joy
Jason Peake, Mark Landvik and the crew at Snowmass, Colo., built this multi-feature for “The Art of Flight.” The feature took on several names, including Moonraker, Boobs Land and Gumdrop Land. It was made up of seven mounds, with the center mound sporting a jib.


13. what stays on the hill
Heavenly, Calif., teamed up with pro rider Kyle Smaine to create this urban-influenced “S” down flat down rail made out of all recycled windfence and snowmaking pipe. It’s roughly 30 feet in overall length and was a huge hit among guests.


14. artistic flair
Mammoth Mountain, Calif., collaborated with the “I Am Snowboarding” traveling art exhibit and crafted this down flat down rail. The skirting was painted by one of the artists on tour, as were a variety of other “I Am Snowboarding” features in Mammoth’s park.


15. from the depths below
SolVista, Colo., introduced “The Tank” to its park and created quite a buzz. Once an underground fuel tank, it now resides under the lift in SolVista’s big park. The tank is 18 feet in diameter and 30 feet long. It sets up with an 8-foot gap up front and quarterpipes on each side.


16. meet me in the middle
Kyle Bradley of Timberline, Ore., threw this X pipe together over a few days. It had two 150-foot-long, 13-foot-tall halfpipes that intersected and crossed one another in the middle. The feature allowed for maximum creativity from riders and took about 15 hours to build.


17. slippery when wet
Sugarbush, Vt., combined this 16-foot shotgun rail, a skate-like pad, and four barrels to make this mini close-out. The feature was low in cost,
but very effective and versatile.


18. make a difference...and a statement
Pat Morgan and his team at Holiday Valley, N.Y., built this bonk feature for Boarding for Breast Cancer. Two industrial pool filters with half-inch thick fiberglass walls were painted appropriately for the cause to make this fun feature. It has become the iconic symbol for the annual event, which was among the largest resort fundraisers in the country last year. ­

EVENTS

Twelve great event entries were submitted this year. Below is just a brief description of each of them.

1. State Line Showdown Series — Heavenly, CA —
A unique, four-part series where competitors compete on a true slopestyle course (top to bottom run) and could hit up to eight features in one run. The comp was held in the Ante Up park, where all features are made from recycled materials.

2. West Coast Sessions 5 — Timberline, Mt. Hood, OR —
A four-day event that brought pros and public park users together to show off what they’re made of. Features included a 25-foot gap to a 30-foot down box and a 20-foot up box to a tap with a 20-foot gap off. And last, but not least, the 120-foot gap jump, which gave up-and-coming riders a chance to show off their talent with the pros, and have fun while doing it.

3. Hot Dawgz & Handrails — Bear Mountain, CA —
Eight years running, this event is held in September with 130 tons of ice brought in for a summertime rail jam that gathers a mere 7,000 spectators and riders. Creative features are made specifically for the event to showcase what’s in store for the upcoming season in the park. The contest has a live web cast on Snowboarder Magazine’s website to get those at home pumped for winter. As an added benefit to visitors, pass prices are dropped in honor of the upcoming season. As of late September, pass sales were already up 25 percent over last season.

4. Hard Day’s Night — Loon, N.H. —
Held under the lights on the outside of the superpipe, this invite-only contest consisted of features mounted onto the pipe’s bank, which was continued and curved after the end of the pipe, making a snowbowl. The event featured various wall rides including a cornered wall ride, which was a huge crowd pleaser. The creativity of the setup brought a seriously progressive snowboarding session
to the event.

5. Dew Hut jam — Mt. Buller, Australia —
The only slopestyle event in Australia where riders are paired in teams of two and have to ride together, completing both creative and technical tricks and smooth landings. The event is based around the DEW HUT, a purpose-built hut with a slidable roof and slidable fuel tank. This year, the park crew decided to use an excavator as a prop for a hanging barrel jib, the first of its kind in Australia.

6. Downtown Rail Jam — Bear Creek, PA —
The resort partnered with Buckman’s Ski Shop and Radio 104.5 to hold a rail jam and concert at the old Schmidt’s Brewery in downtown Philadelphia. Three features were set up and, by the end of the day, a few thousand people had come through. Bear Creek’s booth saw a huge amount of traffic from a demographic that normally doesn’t make the commute out of the city.

7. Rails 2 Riches — Killington, VT —
Now in its seventh year, Killington’s early-season event is filled up in just a few minutes after registration goes live. Fifty riders and 50 skiers compete on the three-feature rail setup in two heats of qualifiers. As an added element of the final jam judging, competitors are asked for their input—at the end of the competition, each athlete casts a ballot for who they think should win in their division. With a $15,000 cash purse, competitors travel from all over the nation for this simple yet highly competitive event.

8. Thredbo Ripcurl Throwdown — Thredbo, Australia —
This invite-only event under the lights consisted of a variety of features for competitors. From gaps to down bars to cannon boxes with 15-foot gaps to down square rails and pole jams with 35-foot cut out gaps to the landing, the competitors raved about the set up, a truly unique event in the region.

9. Danny Parks and Scion/Signal Snow Tour — Ski Roundtop, PA —
More than 70 competitors showed up for the urban-style night event. Seven floodlights outfitted with numerous gels lit up the features in all different colors. Pro riders served as guest judges and announcers and offered riding demos throughout the night, making it the season’s most unique event for the area.

10. Big Nut Open — Chestnut Mountain, IL —
A Super Park Slopestyle comp that is more than a half-mile long and features some of the biggest rails and jumps ever seen in a Midwest competition. The event is both an open and non-open comp for skiers and riders.

11. Summit at Snoqualmie —Summit-at-Snoqualmie, WA —
A unique event where invite-only snowboard athletes can hit the line as many times as they want during an allotted time frame. However, they are required to announce to the judges when they would like to be judged on a particular run, and to state which maneuvers they plan to accomplish. Because this is announced to spectators, too, it truly engages the crowd.

12. Under Armour 3rd Rail Jam — Mountain Creek, N.J. —
In a celebration of urban culture and progressive freestyle, the goal for this event was to bring elements from the street and reinvent them on the mountain. A complete urban-style skate plaza was created, with a 20-stair snow staircase, bus shelter barrier, street-style handrails, pole jam euro gap, picnic tables, concrete “jersey” barriers and a tractor tire bonk. The build took 50 hours and was a major success for the resort.SAM once again put a call out for the most innovative and creative freestyle features and events. Now it's your turn to pick your favorites.