As patrol sweeps the hill, park crew works their way down for their last lap of the day.
Click out just above a feature, scrape it, rake it, move on to the next.
Theres a brief respite for a few hours in the early morning.
The sun is just starting to peek over the back ridge of the mountain when the lifts start spinning.
The park is cold and icy when the crew gathers in their shack.
The first person through the jump line is a dad.
Then he hollers for his kids to drop in as he films them.
The dad is encouraging loudly as he films.
In his eyes these carefully sculpted jumps are just trophies, prizes to show his parent friends.
Look, she skied through the big park!
But for now, hes proud in the peaceful morning.
More hills should have a park pass.
By 11:30 most of the lips are beat up, even though no one has hit a rail yet.
Its just beginners side hitting the lips, carving and hockey stopping on the carefully raked snow.
Park crew takes a lap, raking them all back in.
After lunch, the level of talent improves.
A local crew hikes the kinked down tube for a few hours.
Its unclear if all of them have lift tickets, or if they just hiked up from the base.
Either way, park crew is just glad to see somebody actually using a feature.
It might not happen today, but when it does happen, it will be because of today.
A gaggle of freeride kids runs train on the jump line.
A skier in his second year of skiing skids to the entrance.
He wont hit rails, because hes worried theyll hurt his skis, the first pair hes ever bought.
His friends have talked him into dropping the big jump line though.
He explodes into the air, losing one ski before he even bounces down the knuckle.
Later that evening the reel of his crash will gather hundreds of likes.
The local legend comes up at 1:30, takes four laps, and heads back down.
He throws spins like hes locked into a track, each grab foreordained.
In a few weeks, the resort will close for the season.
Theyll pile hummocks across each lip and landing, absolving the resort from any liability.
Then theyll lock the shack and head home, dissipating to their separate summer jobs.
The knuckles will take a long time to melt.
A few will still be visible when the resort opens again for mountain biking.
The park will lie flat and bare.
