For the week of December 24 - 30, 2003

Baldy halfpipe opens

Freestylers, boarders are in second heaven

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By GREGORY FOLEY
Express Staff Writer

In a move long awaited by scores of Wood River Valley snowboarders and freestyle skiers, Sun Valley Co. on Monday, Dec. 15, officially opened a new snowboarding and skiing halfpipe on the Warm Springs side of Bald Mountain.

The new U-shaped terrain feature—located on the skier’s left side of Lower Warm Springs, below Race Arena—is approximately 400 feet long and 40 feet wide. The steep side walls of the feature are approximately 12 feet high.

After company staff officially opened the halfpipe at 9 a.m. Monday morning, young snowboarders and freestyle skiers took turns navigating the tube, with many performing inverted jumps and complex aerial maneuvers.

Jack Sibbach, director of sales and marketing for Sun Valley Co., said the company opened the new halfpipe as soon as snow conditions allowed. He noted that Bald Mountain’s managers are currently planning to keep the feature open through the remainder of the ski season.

"They anticipate that it will be open through the end of the season," Sibbach said. "But it will depend somewhat on Mother Nature."

Sun Valley Co. has been actively promoting the new halfpipe in its marketing efforts for the ski resort’s 2003-2004 season.

Designed by Alpentech, an engineering firm in Salt Lake City, the new halfpipe is Bald Mountain’s only designated freestyle terrain feature. The company in 1999 developed a halfpipe on its smaller Dollar Mountain ski area, but the location was ultimately deemed inappropriate.

Company officials are hopeful that the new halfpipe will help Sun Valley increase its popularity among the nation’s 17.1 million snowboarders, many of whom have been flocking in recent years to other Western resorts that boast elaborate terrain parks.

"As one of the world’s best ski mountains, with its consistent and continuous pitch, Baldy will now provide an even more varied ski experience for skiers and snowboarders than ever before," Sibbach noted in a Sun Valley Co. press release.

The halfpipe will be used by the Sun Valley Ski and Snowboard School to offer freestyle ski and snowboard lessons for the first time in its history, Sibbach added.

 

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