Eight years ago, when the board of directors voted to cut a half-pipe into Foxfire, people, more precisely skiers, raised hell.  The slouch-trousered sharpie-toting youth contingent was a growing presence at the resort, shouldering their way into the common space amidst the Dale-of-Norway après-ski crowd.  Snowboarders were wild, vulgar, and destructive.  They sit, unstrapped, on their butts in the middle of the slope for hours, waiting for God-knows-what to happen, then get up and sidle lazily down the hill, pushing all the powder out into the woods.  And worst of all, they spent their chairlift rides trying to spit on anyone unwise enough to try to ski under the lift. 

Chris Perks is a snowboarder.  He is also a snowmaker.  Chris cares for the terrain parks as if they were the Royal Botanical Gardens.  Ask him anything.  The exact dimensions of Holiday Valley’s half pipe—Chris was in charge.  Length of the landing on the kicker at Snoozer—Chris called it.  The new rails in the park this season—Chris again.  And, he’s a world-class snowboarder.  From 4 am to 12 pm, Chris works his shift, paying special attention to how much snow gets blown on Foxfire, Snoozer, Moonshadow, and in the rail parks.  Then, after work, he pulls out his Terrain Park Ranger uniform and goes to work hand-grooming features in the rail park.  Whereas most slopes get a once-over every night with a Bombadier hydraulic groomer, the terrain parks have so many special lumps and bumps that they have to be groomed with shovels.