Eight years after the 2002 Winter Olympics, Snowbasin will again be in the national and international spotlight when the prestigious Winter Dew Tour comes to town this month for a four-day ski and snowboard competition featuring some of the biggest airs and most technical tricks being performed today.
In just its second season this year, the Winter Dew Tour is already recognized as one of the more elite competitions outside the Olympics and X Games.
But months before the cameras roll and competitors drop into the superpipe, resort employees are working tirelessly to prepare the slopes for the rails, jumps and other features that must be made to the exact specifications of those who put on the event.
In recent weeks, Snowbasin has been focusing on piling up enough snow to create features big enough to challenge those who will take them on, including an 18-foot-high, 500-foot-long superpipe that alone requires between 30 million and 40 million gallons of water to build.
Throw in a downhill slopestyle course with three rail features and three jumps, and it all adds up to a monumental task.
"We've been blowing snow since the third week of November," said Steve Andrus, Snowbasin's director of sport event operations.
Andrus said preparing for the Winter Dew Tour is easily the biggest single task he and his team have taken on since he joined the resort full-time six years ago.
He has been involved in other competitions like the Xterra Mountain Championship races held during warmer months, "but that's more like the college level, and this is more like the NFL or Super Bowl level. We'll be working all the way up to the competition."
Earlier this week, private contractor Snow Park Technologies of California started cutting the massive mounds of man-made snow into the shapes required for the superpipe and slopestyle events.
Aside from the sheer size and amount of snow required to build the courses, there is the issue of crowd management. Snowbasin is expecting about 20,000 visitors over the course of the four-day event.
Andrus credits a team effort in widening some runs and diverting others around the competition area so that regular skiers and snowboarders won't have their experience impeded.
"We've worked with the Forest Service on where we can take guests so they don't get inconvenienced, things like that," he said. "Just preventative measures we've taken to plan ahead."
The Showboat run, which is being used for the slopestyle competition, will be off-limits to regular visitors for the weekend. But overall, disruptions should be minimal, Andrus said.
In addition to the Snowbasin crew, he credits outside organizations, including the Ogden/Weber Convention & Visitors Bureau and the GOAL Foundation, for help in working out issues such as shuttle service between Snowbasin and Ogden, where concerts and parties will be held downtown in conjunction with the competition.
"There's a great, orchestrated, teamwork effort that goes into getting everything prepared."
Related link: This article is a topic of discussion at Weber County Forum.
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