Wrightwood, CA – Southern California’s Mountain High ski resort has long been a hub for freestyle snowboarding and skiing. Now, with winter just a calendar flip away, Mountain High is set to launch its newest and longest terrain park ever, this time at the East Resort. Officials say that the new park will span 1.6 miles of continuously flowing terrain from top to bottom.n”The goal is to create a world-class terrain park at East, making use of the perfectly-groomed slopes and spreading out the traffic between East and West to create a better experience for all guests, park-oriented or not,” says John McColly, Director of Marketing at Mountain High.

Mountain High’s West Resort has dominated its park scene since the mid 90s but the East Resort is actually better suited for terrain, resort officials indicate. Its runs are longer, the trails are more spread out, and Goldrush’s gradual pitch is perfect for features of all shapes and sizes. Mountain High will capitalize on this by offering a brand new park with features and variations that have never before been seen. There will be a mixture of both big and small elements including banks, hips, jibs, and jumps. There will also be a second learn-to-ride zone at the top of East built solely for beginners. This area will be filled with lower-level features including plenty of fun banks and rollers, and a small BoarderCross course.

“The East Resort is a blank canvas with big, wide runs that lend themselves perfectly to long lines of flowing terrain features,” says Justin Montoya, Mountain High’s Terrain and Snow Surfaces Manager. “This is something brand new for Southern California.”

Mountain High officials spent the entire 2009-10 winter season testing the terrain, establishing features and locations, and fielding suggestions from its guests. The new park incorporates these lessons and blends itself with the natural contours of the mountain to create a top-to-bottom run. Overall the program will better distribute guests between East and West while giving freestyle riders a new park to ride.

At the West Resort the park crew has been busy polishing existing jibs and fabricating new ones. Two stand-outs are a new stair feature in the Playground and a “Pipe” jib designed and sponsored by Skullcandy. The stairs will come in either a 20 or 30 foot version and employ removable footings so rails can easily be interchanged. This lets Mountain High vary the difficulty of the features and create customized set-ups for events and photo shoots.

Mimicking Skullcandy’s iPod docking station labeled the “Pipe,” this new jib comes complete with built-in speakers and a removable DJ booth so riders can not only hit the feature but be entertained as they do so. Skullcandy DJs will make regular appearances at the resort this year, providing audible excitement for both competitions and the general public alike.