It Takes a Village – Park Crew

It takes a village to bring the magic of Banff Sunshine to life. Each season, our team grows to a count of 800 fun-loving and professional individuals who help make our mountain resort SHINE. From our parking lot to our terrain park it takes hard work and a communal effort to get the mountain ready for you to ride.

For this episode of “It Takes a Village,” we took a behind the mountain look of what goes into building, operating, and maintain our five Sunshine Terrain parks. For our terrain parks, trail crew helps get the parks started early in the season, with their snow fences. The snow fences allow us to farm snow, that is later transformed into our jumps and features.

Whether you are an avid park rider or not, you’ve likely seen our hardworking and well-mannered park crew out on the mountain. The skiers and snowboarders that make up our park crew are some of the first up and out on the mountain each morning with the safety-focused task of getting our parks open for the day. This includes raking the snow, dying the features, and testing take offs before guests show up.

For our terrain park team, the day doesn’t end once the bull-wheel stops spinning. When it comes to building and maintaining our parks, much of the work happens after hours. Our head builder Ben Suurallik, spends most of his time working nights in the cats building and grooming the features. When designing our terrain parks, Ben works closely with our Park Crew and other mountain operations teams to ensure creative features that will be fun (and different) for guests to ride.

Something unique about our Sunshine Terrain Parks is each park is made from all natural snow. The snow fences we set up at the beginning of the season set the foundation for our features as we progress through the season. We at Sunshine are one of only a handful of resorts who’s parks are constructed with natural snow. Building with natural snow, is softer and can be harder to sculpt.

When we asked the boys what they love most about working Sunshine Village Park Crew, they struggled as they tried to name just one thing. For our park crew, working at Sunshine surrounded by the beauty of the mountains with awesome team mates was top of the list.

For Ben, it’s the feeling of play he gets when he’s able to push snow around and build from a blank canvas.

At Banff Sunshine, it honestly does take a village to bring the Magic of Sunshine to life. Every team member plays an important role in our day to day operations. Watch the video to see the behind the mountain efforts that go into our Sunshine Terrain Parks.