Smart Terrain at Blue

ALLISON KENNEDY DAVIES

Smart Terrain Arrives at Blue

What is smart terrain? It’s coming to Blue Mountain Resort this winter, and it’s something you should know about—especially if you’re looking to enrol kids in lessons or kickstart/improve your ski/snowboard skills.

“It’s commonly referred to as ‘terrain-based learning,’” says Becki Relihan, Blue’s Director, Programming and Recreation, “but we’re calling it smart terrain. And what that means is, we’re going to shape the snow on our beginner terrain areas to assist people in the critical moves they need to ski and snowboard successfully.”

The concept has been in practice at some Canadian resorts (including Les Sommets in Quebec) for a few years. Put simply, it’s a new approach to on-hill learning. Instead of the beginner skiing or snowboarding “defensively,” bracing for a fall, the terrain-based or smart-terrain method encourages real-time responses to strategically featured, gentle terrain.

Relihan references the example of berms and rollers as features that can help beginners.

“At the bottom of the slope, there will be a little berm to help guests to stop because they probably don’t know how to yet,” Relihan explains. “This will allow them to feel confident and to focus more on moving down the hill, knowing they’re not going to lose control.”

Similarly, rollers will encourage skiers to hone their french-fry/pizza moves in a controlled environment. “On the other side of the roller, skiers can practice the ‘pizza’ as they come down naturally through the terrain.”

Overall, smart terrain shifts the beginner’s emphasis from just slowing down or stopping to responding to the features of the hill while maintaining and modulating balance.

In addition to a limited amount of land-shaping, Blue’s groomers will construct the smart terrain on beginner areas including Easy Rider, Undergraduate, Graduate, Explorer and Big Baby, with snowmaking on standby to deliver the raw material.

“What we’re hoping to create is a synonymous relationship between our instructors and groomers in which the instructors give the groomers feedback on the shape, the size and the grade of some of these features,” Relihan explains. “The groomers can then take that information and finesse overnight for the following day. So what we’re working towards is constant communication between both the instructor team and the snowmaking and grooming team.”

So why is smart terrain arriving at Blue now? “We’ve been trying to do it for a couple of years and now it feels like the right time to really own it,” says Relihan. “There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to learn how to ski/snowboard on a fall line that goes the way that you don’t want to go. It’s difficult to combat that. So by building some of these snow features, we’re hoping it gives guests the confidence after each move that they need to continue to progress.” –Bill Shelley

“There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to learn how to ski/snowboard on a fall line that goes the way that you don’t want to go. It’s difficult to combat that.”