Jibbing the new rail in the Rockies

Echo Mountain Park, Colo. — EIGHT snowboarders sit on the side of a snow-covered mountain, getting ready to fly off a hip-high platform, known as a limo box, while an outdoor speaker strapped to a nearby light pole blares a frenetic Black Eyed Peas tune.

I’m sitting here among the teenagers as they start a game called “shred.” It’s similar to “horse,” except you take turns performing breakneck stunts, then challenge the next guy to match your moves.

It’s opening day at Echo Mountain Snowboard and Ski Park, and the afternoon sun sparkles off an assortment of strange geometric shapes protruding from a blanket of man-made snow.

Timmy Bates, a lanky 18-year-old in baggy snow pants, aims his board toward the box, gathers speed and hits the ramp, then spins 180 degrees. He lands facing uphill and poses for his snowboarding buddies, who half-heartedly applaud, knowing they’ll have to match that jump.

Ten years ago, such antics would have gotten Bates kicked out of any self-respecting ski resort. At Echo Mountain, Colorado’s newest terrain park, snowboarders are king of the hill. This tiny park in the southern Rockies, which opened March 4, holds the distinction of being the nation’s only all-terrain park built from the ground up for boarders and freestyle skiers. It also represents the latest sign that the future of snow sports lies not with wellheeled alpine skiers but with these mop-headed teens and their highflying exploits.

To get a glimpse of this future, I trekked to the 50-acre snow park among the thick groves of lodgepole pine and spruce trees on the eastern slopes of Chief Mountain, 35 miles west of Denver. This is where hotelier Gerald Petitt took over a shuttered 240-acre ski resort three years ago and devised a plan to turn it into a profitable little playground within driving distance of 3 million people.

To ensure his park had the right vibe to win over demanding snowboarders, he put its construction and operation into the hands of a group of thirtysomething business-savvy snowboarders, including two of his sons.

The brash young entrepreneurs launched Echo Mountain with a news release that promised “the place will be off the hook” and would be a hit with “two plankers and knuckle draggers.”

Not the kind of terms you’ll hear from resort executives at Whistler or Vail.

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Behind the curve

IN the early hours before the 11 a.m. opening, the skies are blue and the temperature 37 degrees. Perfect snowboarding weather. But Echo Mountain doesn’t look ready.

A bulldozer, some generators and other construction equipment are strewn around the park. The main lodge, a corrugated metal edifice, is completed, but a smaller lounge that will house a video arcade and a retail store lacks carpeting and drywall.

One of the signature snowboarding features, a volcano-shaped tower inexplicably dubbed “Knuckles,” stands atop a mound of dirt. The snow-making machines came online only a few weeks earlier, which is why Knuckles is not surrounded by snow and why the park opened two months behind schedule.

And yet the teen boarders who show up before the doors open on the first day don’t seem put off by the construction glitches.

“Where’s your board, man?” asks one of the ski patrol volunteers as he sails past me on the hill.

“I didn’t bring one,” I reply.

But the truth is I have not stepped into a pair of skis in years, and I feel slightly out of place. Kids with strands of unruly hair streaming from beneath their wool knit caps blow past me.

I catch bits and pieces of “shred speak,” the lingo that’s laced with such terms as “jib” (to ride on a nonsnow surface), “two plankers” (skier), “knuckle draggers” (snowboarders) and “butter the biscuit” (to ride on the nose of the board).

I’ve heard that snowboarding is easier than skiing. But is this the kind of place to learn? I don’t see a bunny slope on the Echo Mountain terrain map. What if I try to “butter the biscuit” and instead I bust my biscuit? Will my insurance cover me if I accidentally jib my spleen?

Given these humiliating options, I decide to case the joint before taking on anything too ambitious.

A decade ago, if you had driven up Squaw Pass Road toward Echo Lake, you would have come across the abandoned remnants of the old Squaw Pass Ski Resort. A rusty T-bar lift. A muddy entrance road. Several collapsed buildings and a bread-loaf-shaped clearing bordered by a thicket of trees.

The mom-and-pop resort had the advantage of being the closest ski park to Denver but suffered from meager snowfall and closed in 1974.

Since then, several investors have tried to reopen it, but no one could make the finances pencil out.

But that was before Petitt moved in.

He was on his computer three years ago, scrolling through online auction notices, when he read that the old resort was for sale. Maybe he could reopen it, he thought. Or maybe he could subdivide it and build luxury homes. Petitt, president of Creative Hotel Associates, didn’t know what to do with the property. But he knew that at $700,000 it was a good investment.

That was when he learned what ski resort operators have known for years: The industry is in a rut. The fun-loving baby boomers that kept the industry in the black for so many years are shelving their skis in pursuit of tamer pastimes. The real growth in the industry now comes from snowboarding and free-style skiing.

At Mammoth Mountain in Mammoth Lakes, snowboarders represent nearly half the visitors and bring in a third of the revenue.

Numbers like these are hard to argue with, yet capitalizing on them is a different matter. To figure out how to make a terrain park work, Petitt turned to his son Eric, who has an MBA from UC Berkeley. Eric, in turn, found Doug Donovan, a fellow MBA student. And almost overnight, Echo Mountain had its director of public relations -- Eric Petitt -- and its general manager, Donovan.

The park’s opening couldn’t be timed better. Snowboarders got top billing at the winter Olympics. Didn’t we just see that skinny redhead, snowboard superstar Shaun White -- the gold medalist dubbed the Flying Tomato -- on the cover of Rolling Stone?

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Know your customers

AS I nose around the lodge, I meet Donovan, 33, who wears sunglasses and a knit cap pulled down to his eyebrows. He walks me into the lodge, whose decor he describes as “teenage basement.”

Snowboarders are slouched at dinged-up Formica tables and chairs, remnants of high school cafeterias and fast-food restaurants. Petitt bought the furniture used to save money and make teen snowboarders feel at home.

In the corner, a couple of couches face a 19-inch TV hooked to an old Atari game system, playing “Pong,” the granddaddy of all video games.

The lodge operates no kitchen. No $9 ski resort burgers or $5 bottled water. Hungry patrons will eat microwaved burritos, frozen pizzas, energy bars and other processed food. A space is reserved for the Saltine Bar, where kids can stuff themselves with free ketchup and cracker sandwiches.

“Our philosophy is ‘Whatever Vail does, we do the opposite,’ ” Donovan says.

That attitude extends to ticket prices. A daily lift ticket is $81 at Vail. Echo Mountain charges $35 weekends and $25 weekdays. Stadium lights will allow boarders to ride until 9 p.m.

The biggest selling point, says Donovan, is location: Echo Mountain is a 45-minute drive from Denver. No need to fight the ski resort traffic on Interstate 70, which serves visitors to Vail, Breckenridge and Copper Mountain. But Echo Mountain is not a full-service resort, so you need to trek down the mountain about 11 miles to Evergreen to reach the nearest fast-food restaurant.

But whatever the uncertainties, it’s a formula others are willing to try.

Michael Coors, nephew of Coors Chief Executive Peter Coors, is heading an investment group to develop a 260-acre terrain park at the site of the dormant St. Mary’s Glacier ski area, west of Idaho Springs, Colo. Says Gerald Petitt of his potential competitor: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.”

As the lodge begins to fill with snowboarders, Petitt, a tall, grizzly bear of a man, walks in. For someone who has dropped more than $5 million into this place, he seems certain his limo boxes, microwave burritos and cafeteria furniture will draw the 40,000 annual visitors he needs to see a profit.

“We’ve got a great little playground,” he says as the park’s sound system comes to life with an ear-busting hip-hop tune.

Outside, that same bone-rattling clamor blares from outdoor speakers. The only words I discern from the distorted ruckus are choice selections from the FCC’s list of banned words. Donovan promises to edit the soundtrack to keep such language to a minimum. After all, adults might be listening.

Four teenagers on snowboards are milling around the lodge entrance, itching to be the park’s first paying customers. They look at Donovan, and he flashes a smile.

“All yours, fellows. You have it to yourselves,” he says before picking up a walkie-talkie and telling his crew, “We have customers on the hill!”

In a gap between two groves of trees, the three-seat chairlift begins to move. Like the cafeteria furniture, it’s a hand-me-down, pieced together from lifts used at Heavenly Mountain Resort in Lake Tahoe and Mammoth Mountain.

A couple of minutes later, the first snowboarders are on the lift, their boards dangling from their feet as they glide over pine, fir and spruce trees. I scramble to the bottom of the hill to ride the Frankenstein monster of a chairlift and catch up to the park’s first riders.

The first feature they hit after coming off the lift is a C rail, an elevated crescent-shaped bar. Once they land they can choose from the tabletop jump on the left or they can jib off the limo box on the right. Next are a double rail, some picnic benches and a few rainbow rails.

As I hike to the bottom of the hill again and watch snowboarders and twin-tip skiers fly past in a spray of snow, I become envious of these kids who fly, spin and, often, crash in giggling heaps around me.

At once, I’m tempted to borrow a board and risk my pride (and a few broken bones) for a chance to soar like 16-year-old A.J. Quintana. He’s a high schooler from nearby Littleton, Colo., who sails off the last jump on the hill, freezes in the air for a second and then lands with a swoosh. He skids to a stop near the bottom of the lift and tries to shout over a heavy-metal Danzig tune.

“It’s great,” he shouts, his face flush with excitement. “For the first day, it’s more than I expected.”

A few minutes later, Taylor Doyle, another 16-year-old from Lakewood, flies down the mountain. Like other boarders, he wants to see more natural features, like logs, rollers and baby jumps. But otherwise Doyle gives the park his highest rating, calling it “pretty sick,” which, according to my understanding of the lingo, means he likes it.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

For the wild at heart

GETTING THERE:

From LAX, American, Frontier, United and US Airways fly nonstop to Denver. America West, Delta and Southwest have connecting service (change of planes). Restricted, round-trip fares begin at $189.

From Denver International Airport, it is about 60 miles to Echo Mountain. Take Pena Boulevard to Interstate 70. Go west on I-70, through downtown Denver, exiting at Evergreen Parkway (Colorado 74). Turn right onto Squaw Pass Road (Colorado 103) and drive 12 miles to Echo Mountain.

WHERE TO STAY:

The nearest accommodations for Echo Mountain are in Denver’s western suburbs.

Quality Suites Inn, 29300 U.S. 40, Evergreen; (303) 526-2000. The closest hotel to the park, about 11 miles away. Doubles from $110.

Hampton Inn Denver West, 137 Union Blvd., Lakewood; (303) 969-9900, www.denverwestfederalcenter.hamptoninn.com. Doubles from $69.

WHERE TO EAT:

Dining at Echo Mountain is limited, so your best bet is in nearby Evergreen.

TO LEARN MORE:

Echo Mountain, 19285 Highway 103, Idaho Springs; (720) 226-0636, www.echomtnpark.com. Lift tickets: $25 for weekdays, $35 for weekends.

-- Hugo Martin