Park takes natural look

Snowboarding returns to its roots at The Stash, Killington’s all-natural terrain park. Spearheaded by Burton Snowboards and designed by Snow Park Technologies, the cloistered park with a wooden archway entrance off the Skye Peak Express is like a backyard fort on steroids.

Snowboarding’s psyche is found in its pioneers, including Vermonter and Burton founder Jake Burton. He and his buddies would ride homemade boards and snurfers in the 1970s through backyard woods before the sport evolved - a generation later - to standard metal features in resort terrain parks.

“Jake Burton saw a bunch of people basically not going anywhere but the terrain park,’’ said Killington terrain park supervisor Jay Rosenbaum. “He saw the soul of snowboarding go away. He wanted to combine terrain parks and the woods, blend the two together.’’

The Stash, found in the woods and on a trail formerly called Shorty on Bear Mountain, opened in December 2008 and is the fifth such Burton park. The others are in New Zealand, Austria, France, and California’s Northstar-at-Tahoe.

It will house its first competition, The Gathering, March 13. A slopestyle type of event, riders will find lines through the park and pass by judges in three zones, since it’s impossible to see - and sometimes find - all of the 40-plus features.

The features are made of milled birch logs, plus the maple and spruce found on the mountain. Much of the milled logs are used for rails and flat boxes, while the park also has bowing trees. Made with a recycling mentality, the park even has a weathered log cabin once used by ski instructors to show students their videotaped lessons.

There are three basic routes through the park, and the Sugar Shack is like an island oasis surrounded by the woods.