2009 Resort Poll: East Coast Rankings
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Loon Mountain Pulls A Resort Poll Trifecta
The East Coast’s Number One Ranked Park, Pipe, And Overall Resort
By John Poulin
Cranes, spunky block letters, and crazy sideways spinnin’ Risto Mattila are a few props that keep Loon loony and locked into the number one spot. PHOTO: Brian Norton
This year, we decided it was time for the East Coast to have a voice of its own in the Resort Poll. Little did we know that one resort would shine so brightly—Loon dominated every category in the new East Coast Resort Poll, proving this past season that it truly offers everything a shredder could ask for. From a solid snowboard scene on and off the hill to a pristinely maintained park and pipe—Loon is taking East Coast shredding to new heights.
The Overall Resort win means that Loon has the complete kit: everything from excellent food to speedy lifts, dependable snow quality, and a welcoming vibe from the locals and staff. As far as lodging and nightlife go, if you’ve got the pocket for top-class accommodations, Loon and the town of Lincoln have you covered; but if like most traveling shreds, you’re looking to ball on a budget, the nearby college town of Plymouth is your place. A 25-minute drive down the highway leads to cheap lodging, drinks, and food; the place has seen so many shred dirts come through on their way to Loon that you and your crumpled-up five dollar bill will be welcomed with open arms.
While college parties and cheap pizza are definitely perks on a trip to Loon, the parks are what really put it out front. The famed Loon Mountain Park (LMP) is a spectacle all in itself, atop the list of longest parks in the east at 3,600 feet. The crew of dedicated park staff keeps everything dialed in and ready for your shredding pleasure—they’re all boarders with the same interests as you. “We want to make stuff that we want to ride on our days off,” says Park Manager Jay Scambio. “We see guys from other park staffs riding here on their free days.”
Taking a run at Loon isn’t your average park lap. You start off in the gondola, staying out of the harsh New England weather long enough to recharge your batteries for the next run. On the way down to LMP, you’ll find little pocket parks to get you warmed up and entertained, and Loon has some of the best side-of-the-trail jibs and secret lines around. Once you’re in LMP, you’ll find perfectly sculpted kickers and handfuls of on-point jibs, all linked together with continuous flow. Not quite ready to step to LMP? Want a few more warm-up laps? Loon has a Burton Progression Park for beginners, and the intermediate park doubled in size last winter, so take your pick.
At the bottom of LMP sits Loon’s now top-ranked Superpipe. It’s no easy task to have a good pipe on the East Coast, but Loon put in the work to make it happen. And they’re still raising the bar; they just picked up a new eighteen-foot Zaugg, upping their chances of holding on to next year’s number-one spot.
This summer, Loon is installing power down all of LMP, which means that the snowguns will be up and blowing earlier than ever and LMP will be firing all season long. They’re building a dozen new jibs, and riders got a sneak peek late last season at their latest creation, that can only be described as a Hubba on steroids: four 30-foot rails set on stairs. Loon is host to dozens of core contests, most notably Eastern Boarder’s Last Call and the annual Shop Showdown. If for some reason you’re still looking for an excuse to visit Loon, save the date and check out these East Coast shred reunions in the spring.
loonmtn.com
Tags: 2009 Resort Poll, Big Boulder, Loon Mountain, Mont Tremblant, Mount Snow, Okemo, resort poll, Seven Springs, Sunday River, Waterville Valley
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odviously no one who took this survey has been to mountain creek new jersey,,,,,way nicer park and yes ive been to every place mentioned above
um…waaay nicer Park?!!! Um….NO
Everything about the state of New Jersey sucks! Therefore nothing good can come from there! I just spent the last year there and I would have rathered been dead! I’m from Arizona and our snow is better!!! Mountains…. not hills Jersey Scum!
im from jersey and ride creek all the time, but Big Boulder has a nicer park
Mountain creek stepped it up with the jiblab and all that, but they dont maintain it for sh.it and mot of the landings have huge bomb holes in them like a grenade exploded at the end of almost every jib and the landing of almost every hit. Creek has some potential but their park crew either needs to get bigger or they need to work harder at fixing landings.
BUT creek does have the best vibe. its fun as hell. forgot to put that in there.
i agree with dylan, i ride creek alot and every year they have new features, which is nice….but every year they also have way too many kids for each jib and the landings turn into giant bomb holes…..we went up this one time and up at the top with all the small boxes and shit, at the begining of the day the landings were fine, by noon there were some semi-deep ruts and by the end of the day the ruts were so deep you had to ollie out of whatever slide you were doing to try and avoid them because landing in them wasn’t an option anymore
creek is good, real good, but they def don’t maintain well enough hour by hour to be put up on here
big boulder is terrible. i’ve never been there and had a good time or felt a good vibe. their lips are built like quarter pipes and their runs are so short.
big boulder is amazing. and if you think that their lips are like quarter pipes then you must of never hit a real kicker!?! they are perfect..steep lip and steep gradual landing. Come and ride and ill gaurenteeeeeeee you will be stoked
i was on the east coast and rode big boulder, loon mountain, and mountain creek. loon was by far the best because they had so much more snow than the other places and so many big booters and stuff.big boulder was alright but their features werent maintaned well and it wasn’t much fun to ride. at mountain creek i had the most fun of all three, with the little snow they had, they made it work into a few super fun top to bottom runs.
boulder is pretty good, but i like creek better, some stuff at boulder is better, but its like riding a bunny hill or something, i hate how small that place is and their lifts. its cool that they are open a lot and stuff, but it doesnt feel like you are riding a mountain. creek is def better i think.
its not a mountain…its a park (big boulder PARK) if you want to ride trail go rightttt down the road to jack frost they have a really good jump line and real nice trails…
Of these i have only beeen to Mountain Creek, but have seen alot from all of these resorts. Creek has alot of features, but lacks the snow to build 40-60 foot jump lines and use all their features. Creek also doesn’t change or maintain their features well and wastes snow on a halfpipe which opened March 1st instead of building jumps. If creek had the snow it would definitely be Top 5 and probably is top 10 on the east right now.
Loon is the clear winner. They definitly have the best park on the east and better jibs than most on the west. i rode loon christmas time last season and didn’t even go in the park because there was 3 feet of powder.beautiful wet east coast powder. and NJ smells bad
Where’s Seven Springs on this list?
OHHHH ITS THERE PETE top 5 pipes on the east coast chicka chicka yeaaaaaaahhhhhh
Loon definately has good marketing team that deals with Transworld well, beacause Loon is not really great as ranking #1 in east cost, too far from everywhere, too deep inside of upper NH, and worst parking system. I believe Mt.Creek and Stratton has a lot better park features, although creek has huge park area, but only with small rails and boxes. They need to properly hire park crews like stratton, not cheap wage high schoolers. I saw they use water to keep the snow in shape, not using salt, that was looking funny & sily. Crews carry 5 gallon bottle around the park. I vote for Mammoth lakes, CA and Whistler, BC in west cost, and Mt.Creek, Stratton, and mount snow in east cost.
being one of these un train park crew fellows. we used the water becuase the snow was too dry for salt. it was all granular, salt only works when there is mosture in the snow. the water solidified the granular and froze up solid so that there wasn’t bomb holes the rest of the night.
Hey guys the shakedown is at the mont saint-sauveur not at tremblant !!!”"!$”!$
mountain creek has good rails, and lots of them. best people and best vibe out of any place on the east coast. you won’t find more people having more fun on the right coast. boulder sucks, ian is fat, and their rails wobble at the least breeze. how can you have a man running the park if he can’t even snowboard, i mean physically the man is too top heavy.
mountain creek is the best.
fock big boulder. best rails, worse people.
Hey Jake, these rankings don’t care about the parking, and what was so bad with it anyway. This is for the best resort/parks on the east coast. The resort is right off 93, how hard is that? You can’t even argue that anyone puts together a better park, hell, there are some places out west in the top 10 that can’t compare to some of the stuff Loon was able to do last year. Stratton’s park was crap, I’ve never seen a bigger shitshow in my life. And mt. creek… are you serious, that place is in america’s armpit. Nuff said.
loon takes it without a doubt. stratton should go home and lie down. mt snow used to be sick years and years ago but i havent been impressed with anything theyve done in the last few years
waterville sux i hate riding the tow rope all day. The jumps are all geared towards skiers so weakkkkkkkkkkk
stop talking about mountain creek. It has snow 4 2 months a year. No one would know about if it wasen’t 4 danny cass
BRISTOL MOUNTAIN!!! IS THE BEST… not really.
Creek sucks, They never get any snow, They never make any snow. the park crew sucks the rail’s are not kept up at all just youtube some creek footy your bound to come across people falling in giant holes at the end of rails. Ride anywhere but creek.
Okemo has got nothing on Killington’s park. Killington still doesn’t know how to cut a half pipe though.
LOOOOOOON!
dood NJ blows!!!!! my backyard has more vertical then mountain creek. Loon is really not all that. yes their park is dank but you cant get many park laps in because of the gondaola it takes forever. Im shocked stowe didnt get mentioned. Stowe is dank and has a nice park they get a lot of snow. Mount Snow has a really nice park too. i loved there jump line last year and Carinthia is going to be fucking sick. there going to have the best park this year hands down.
does the east coast really suck so bad they had to give it it’s own brakket???
I’ve never been out east…
but it dosen’t look that bad…
but i’m kinda wondering why the east got it’s own divsion…
(less snow???)
Go to boulder a few times a year…
The hits are pretty enormous for the East coast in bp’s large park. All are solid 30-60 footers, usually two are built side-by-side allowing for a huge tranny. You can find some real up-and-comers filming there. Rails are solid. 1/2 pipe is non-existent most of the time, but no surprise there. Runs are short, icy conditions can definitely make safely using the big hits impossible more than a handful of times per year, but shawdows aren’t much of an issue and the big park is definitely steep enough for the huge hits.
The resort itself is trash. Marketing it as a park was the only way to keep from updating any facilities or lifts. THE LIFT ARE SLOW AS BALLS. The last coat of paint might have been put on in the 70s. The lodge stinks. Parking is actually ok in capacity, but the parking lot looks like a minefield from WWII. Bring a truck or SUV if you don’t want to bottom out.
Accurate to only include them in top five for parks, but it IS a serious park that’s usually busy with serious talent. Hits and rails are better in quality than I saw at Stowe or Killington last year.
Loon wins, i’ve had a pass there for four years and have never been disappointed. The vibe is chill, a speedy gondola to the top from where you can hit a few parks. You almost always see some park crew out there on every run fixing something. location, 5 minutes off 93. You can’t beat it
i ride loon 4 days a week and it never gets old…loon represent all day
loon also had the best jump line i have ever seen last season.. 70ft to end the line then u had a 40 ft wall ride and the hubba what else could u ask for….
creek had this image of producing talented riders because of the shit conditions so they get to the west and kill it.
which still happens.
but if they dont get to the west, they just seem to get mad the “we’re dirty-our-shit-sucks-you-cant-ride-ice-we’re-tough-as-nails” image doesnt stack up.
case in point a PA/NJ park will ALWAYS suck. so you gotta move.
I ride Loon and i grew up in PA and still shred there when in the area. All you in the mid Atlantic are lucky boulder and mtn creek were even mentioned there are many other parks in the north east that are way better in more ways then one! Cranmore and Stowe to name some and even smaller mtns like Gunstock and Crotched. so check up on Crotched Locals Killin It out west Brandon Reis and Sam Hulbert and Gunstock shredder Chas Guldemond! if you wanna see GOOD parks get up HERE!
Mountain Creek has gone downhill big time! They park crew is not very motivated and the park has very poor flow. The old park on North peak was better with only 1/2 of the terrain! Something must have changed, mountain creek isn’t the trendsetter it used to be.
EVERYONE who believes loon doesn’t deserve first are just jealous there mountain isn’t first. LOON is clearly the best for parks and pipes, Mountain creek doesnt even have one 35 footer blows chunks. Loon may not have two many trails but they focus on their park,not other trails. Loon blows snow from opening day to at least january in the park so they can still be ranked #1 in east. and our park crew may be highschoolers but there not as freakin lazy as mountain creeks and other mountains
very welllll stated…never been to loon but it sounds badass, but also on another note, big boulder has stepped their game up alottt in the past couple years and this year will be amazing.
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