PARK CITY — Even after 24 hours to process it, Jeremy Jones can’t express how it felt to see athletes exploring the state’s newest, and likely its most unique ski resort, a day before it opened for the public on Saturday.
“Yesterday was more private, more athletes only, and I witnessed something I’ll never see again,” said Jones, a former competitive snowboarder and skateboarder who grew up in Farmington and helped design the concept of Woodward Park City, which is nestled on the south side of I-80, just two miles north of Parley’s Summit.
“It’s indescribable. I just don’t have the words for it.”
That’s because what he witnessed happening at Woodward Park City — a resort and action sports training facility — was more of an energy than it was something he could touch or articulate.
“The emotions,” said Jones, who is one of the resort’s athlete ambassadors. “It was unreal.”
On Saturday, when hundreds of locals joined competitive athletes, including current and former Olympians, the energy was a mix of joy, wonder and adventure seeking. Parents joined their children hand-in-hand on trampolines that sent them flipping and flopping into foam pits.
Elementary age children chattered with each other as they took turns navigating the BMX ramp and terrain park, which also offered a foam pit for the learning — and creation — of new tricks.
It was a wall-to-wall, elbow-to-elbow giddy crowd that didn’t seem the least bit bothered by long lines, unintended bumps or the vicious snowstorm and windstorm that limited traffic up Parley’s Canyon to four-wheel drive or chains.
“It’s seriously one of a kind,” said Olympic gold medalist Sage Kotzenburg, who left the snowy slopes to sign autographs for aspiring action sport enthusiasts of all shapes and sizes.
“You have the Woodward in Tahoe, the Woodward in Copper, and obviously the east and west ones, but this one is a full resort. There are beginning stages of where you can take your snowboarding and skiing outside, and you can also take your practice stuff indoors, too. It’s definitely one of a kind.”
The Park City native won the first-ever Olympic gold in snowboarding slopestyle in the Sochi Winter Games in 2014. He did so landing a trick he said he’d never even tried before, and then told the Deseret News back then, “That’s what’s cool about snowboarding. You can go out there and try your own trick, put your own flair on it. ... This sport is based on what you want to do. There is no blueprint.”
Which is why Woodward Park City is so unique and valuable to the community it aims to serve — those who’ve embraced action and nontraditional sports and those who think they might want to give something in that universe a try. It offers what Woodward Park City general manager Shaydar Edelmann calls “safe progression” in what program development director Phoebe Mills calls “a community of passionate people ... in an inclusive environment.”
The bottom line is, whatever you’re looking for, you can find it or create it, and you’ll likely find some friends or companions with whom to share that exploration.
“You really feel like you belong, right away, without much effort,” Mills said, acknowledging that after she left gymnastics for snowboarding 20 years ago, she didn’t see a lot of women in the action sports universe. That has changed, and places like Woodward Park City promise to change that reality even more.
“There is a community and a place to go that will make you feel welcome,” Mills said. “We have programs specifically for girls, like camps and clinics, but even without that, it’s just a really welcoming environment. ... And wherever you’re at, we’ll help you with your progression.”
Kotzenburg said it will only help the evolution of the sports he loves because it makes what some see as fringe activities so accessible.
“I like this a lot because it’s in my backyard,” he said. “So when I heard rumors about this starting, I was definitely pushing for it a lot. And for me, just basing out of here, and training here, and being able to ride with the younger kids here is really special.”
Edlemann said the draw for the native New Zealander was that this incarnation of Woodward resort isn’t attached to something that already exists.
“We sort of see us as the leader in action sports going on 50 years,” Edelmann said. “The biggest deal is that we get to do things right from the start.”
Every aspect of the design — from guest services to affordable housing to the lifts and terrain parks — are designed for the athletes that will use and be served by the resort, which was all created in 15 months.
Jones, who created his first snowboard in the 1980s with an old skateboard, said having a facility like this would have certainly meant more success in the sport for him.
“I see the difference that it would have made for me now in these kids,” Jones said. “And I just think it is amazing. This is literally dreams that I would sketch on notepads in junior high and high school — facilities like this, one stop shop where you could go thrash things to pieces on the snowboard, then skateboard, then BMX, or whatever, skis. Whatever your thing was. And everything being real intuitive to the mountain, like there are transitions everywhere, rollers everywhere, and it’s not just this linear thing.”
Take for instance the courtyards. At Woodward Park City, they are also terrain parks. Instead of adapting what they do to architecture that had some other use in mind, everything is tailored to the needs, imagination and development of action sport athletes of all genders, abilities and aspirations.
“I mean, it’s just dreamland, Disneyland, from my perspective,” Jones said. “It’s a complete action sport facility. It’s totally complete, and it’s on an urban mountain.”