On October 24, Sugar Bowl revealed their plan to expand and improve their terrain park offerings for the coming ski and snowboarding season on social media platforms like Instagram. 

This season, all of the terrain parks will be moved over from Judah to Christmas Tree Express. Three parks for varying skill levels will be established:

• Peregrine Ridge (previously Chase Ridge): S/M 
• Golden Eagle (previously Sleigh Ride): L
• Condor (previously Ridge Run): Big Air

Sugar Bowl hopes the tiered progression ushers in a culture where athletes, especially of the younger generation, can advance their skills. Brandon Dodds, the resort’s Head Park Designer and Builder wants the park to “expand on [the] culture we already have”. 

Dodds grew up in Minnesota and moved to Tahoe with a friend after high school to live out his snowboarding dreams. He started out as a lift operator at Heavenly, but his passion for freestyle took him to the park building route. This will be Dodds’ 27th year in parks and his third season building at Sugar Bowl.

The Truckee-Tahoe region is often recognized as a breeding ground for world-class athletes, namely in the snowsports space. Sugar Bowl saw that there was a need for more training-focused offerings in the regional park scene. 

According to the Sierra Sun, the resort’s CEO, Bridget Legnavsky, used to manage Cardrona ski resort in New Zealand known for producing talent like X Games freeskier Jossi Wells. The rebranding of Sugar Bowl Parks similarly aims to bring local skiers and riders to the world stage. 

Truckee High student Kayden Zimmerman is one of many young people looking forward to the new and improved terrain park this season. Zimmerman snowboards at Sugar Bowl and believes that this is an important next step for the resort “especially because of the cheaper pass opportunities for local kids”. 

In recent years, Sugar Bowl has offered a discounted unrestricted season pass for students in the region for $199. According to their website, “All students enrolled in schools within qualifying local school district boundaries for the 2024/25 school year qualify”.

11-year-old Truckee skier Marcus Hainsworth is another young athlete that benefits from the discounted student pass. He believes younger kids like him will be able to further advance their skills and try out a larger variety of features due to the expanded park offerings. “I think [the park] is going to be a lot better because we can hit bigger tricks,” Hainsworth says. 

The excitement from youth and teens in the Truckee-Tahoe area surrounding the Sugar Bowl park plans is palpable. Truckee High student Myca Florio says “it’s supposed to be a world-class park this year”.

However, one possible challenge of moving the park over to Christmas Tree would be an increase in crowds on that chairlift. Once the season begins, ski races and race practices will be held on Van Ruiten’s Run frequently, including over the weekend when many people will flock to the terrain parks. 

When asked about the hypothetical conflict, Dodds said, “I’m very curious to see how that works out”. Based on his previous experiences, Dodds thinks it is likely that there will be increased crowding on Christmas Tree due to the park relocation.

Sugar Bowl’s management team believes there will not be a huge problem with traffic on Christmas Tree. Also, both the freeride and race programs that would be using the parks and raceway are run by Sugar Bowl Academy. Due to the fact that they are under the same umbrella, the two cultures should be able to effectively coexist and share the slopes.

A lot of work goes into building terrain parks. Firstly and most importantly, there needs to be snow. Once there is some accumulation of those cold, white crystals, the parks crew can move the snow into the desired locations with snowcats. Dodds calls this process of grating and tilling the snow “farming”.

A variety of equipment is used in the construction of park features. Snowcats, as mentioned, play a crucial role. Sugar Bowl uses Prinoth Bison X and PistenBully Park 400 cats as well as winch snowcats on bigger jumps because they can be more easily maneuvered when climbing. 

In addition to these machines, park rakes (also known as “sporks”) and transition shovels are some of the hand tools involved in building. The latter are essentially heavy duty shovels with sharp edges that are good for crafting clean and square take-offs.

The work doesn’t end when the jumps are built because rails still need to be placed throughout the run to complete the terrain offerings. Dodds begins rail construction for Sugar Bowl by designing his vision in a software called SketchUp. In addition to his own inspiration, “I get ideas from the crew and my friends,” Dodds states. Getting a variety of perspectives is important to the Head Designer and Builder and he is always searching for more feedback to improve the flow of the parks he constructs.

After the designing phases, pieces of steel have to be chopped up, welded together, and then painted to create the final product. Dodds has dedicated a lot of time to building and refurbishing rails in the off-season and has created seven new features recently.

Another exciting thing in the works for Sugar Bowl’s terrain parks will be the use of earthworks in park construction for the 2025-26 season. Dodds defines this as “shaping the existing slopes to our dimensions,” meaning the jumps will be built out of dirt before the snow falls. This plan will ensure that features will exist even with a shallow or early season snowpack. 

There are a lot of changes to come in the next few years for Sugar Bowl’s terrain parks. This season, passholders will experience a new and improved tiered progression of features that they can tailor towards their personal skiing and riding goals. 

Sugar Bowl’s planned opening date is November 22.