MOUNTAIN LIVES #1 – Geoff Bostwick, Snowcat driver and terrain park shaperWe've taken a peek into the mysterious nocturnal world of jet-setting snowcat driver Geoff Bostwick
There's a fair few unsung heroes in the world (and many far more deserving of praise than jumped up little squirts who just get to go snowboarding everyday) but in addition to your more conventional karma collectors, there are a host of people that make the mountain and snowboard network tick (albeit in a rather haphazard fashion) and without who our dearly beloved sport would be, well, not as good. We got in touch with US born Geoff Bostwick while he was taking his summer vacation; to see exactly how hard it is to drive a souped-up lawn mower over jumps all night long?
DCMT: When did you get into snowboarding?
GB: I was born an hour and a half north of New York, near the Catskill Mountains. I guess I first stepped on a snowboard at 12 years old, and that was it, I was hooked. From 12 to 22-ish, I was obsessed, I lived and breathed all the magazines and videos, and it was my whole life. I wanted to be a pro, I'd jump on my trampoline everyday for the whole summer, obsessively, but I just don't have enough balls and a couple of bad injuries knocked that on the head. I still love it, but it's not the only thing in my life now, I want to be able to walk when I'm older and I find it difficult to make good judgements about when to stop or what not to do.
DCMT: What led you to terrain park shaping?
GB: I started instructing at 16 years old, then the guy who was building the park kinda' got all frustrated, and I made these drawings and presented them to the cat driving guys. I started sitting in the machines and telling them where to push the snow, it's hard to explain park building to someone else though, you're essentially trying to tell someone how to make a sculpture or to paint, which is hard. Eventually they got tired of listening to me and told me, 'You do it'.
DCMT: So when did you drive a snowcat for the first time?
GB: At Windham Mountain, I'd been watching the drivers for ages so I knew what I wanted to do, but it's still scary, it can be intimidating when you first drive the snowcat, you can do a lot of damage pretty easily to a 13 tonne, $300 000 machine. And you don't want to mess up in case they don't let you do anymore. That had become my dream; to build snowboard parks.
DCMT: Where do you work now?
GB: I work for the most part at Echo Mountain (echomtnpark.com) in Colorado. But then in the summer I've been working at Folgefonna Snowboard Camp in Norway (folgefonna.no) for a bunch of years and I do some other projects. This passed year I went to Russia and built a park there, at the Flammable Camp in Dombai. That was really fun, great people and a great mountain.
DCMT: What is the work like, how many hours are you driving a night?
GB: In Colorado I do 40 hours in three days; one 18-hour day and then two 11-hour days. We groom the park and trail every night; that takes seven hours before we have even started fixing rails or landings. I work a lot by choice, just to get it done.
DCMT: When do you get to sleep?
GB: I sleep during the day and work at night then switch around for the weekend, which is hard.
DCMT: What is your most valuable asset in the cab?
GB: You definitely need an iPod to get you through a long night. I listen to audio books, podcasts and all kinds of stuff. You're driving really, really slow; it's like mowing the lawn.
DCMT: How do you see in the dark?
GB: There are lights on the machine. The dark isn't really too much of a problem, up in Norway the fog is the problem. Sometimes in the dark it is easier to see with the shadows and textures. You do need a lot of patience though; you've got to be a patient person to build a park. There's a lot of monotony; pushing a big pile snow, backing up, going forward, backing up, going forward… Try that in your driveway in the car for 12 hours and see if you get bored! I wish I could have someone push the piles and I'll just come in and shape things, one day maybe, ha-ha.
DCMT: What cat machine do you drive?
GB: The machine is normally a Park Bully, you can lift the front blade and rear tiller higher and lower than normal, which helps you groom things high up or low-down. Pretty much the industry standard, and easiest machine for making transitions, are from a Swiss company, Zaugg. Their halfpipe cutter is the best because it is really durable compared to a lot of other pipe cutters. And it takes the snow and blows it up over the halfpipe wall, as opposed to other cutters where you have to cut it and clean more snow out of the pipe with a separate machine. Some people say the Pipe Dragon leaves a better finish with regard to groom marks but usually they don't last long anyway and for the ease of building I prefer the Zaugg cutter.
DCMT: Is the job dangerous?
GB: It can be dangerous for the cat driver, every year someone dies because they run themselves over – they put on a break in a machine so that nothing moves, take a piss and a jacket catches on a control or something malfunctions. You have to be super safe and make sure the brakes are on and it's all secure each time you get out. But it can also be dangerous for people working around the machine. You need to be looking where you're going and ensure you're beeping light is on etc.
DCMT: How dangerous is it to ride around the slopes when the machine is working on a winch, with a cable pulling it up the slope or over steep landings?
GB: It's very dangerous to be near a cable because there is so much tension and there could be lateral tension as well. The cable could get caught on something and if it whips to one side it could kill someone. In Europe they're less strict but in the States they cordon off the whole area when snowcats are using a cable.
DCMT: What are the most valuable lessons you have learnt?
GB: There is the operation side of it and the park logistics side of it. How you operate the machine; you need to be slow and careful and not try to push too much snow at once. There are certain movements that put pressure on the machine in different ways – you learn these over time and it's really important not to break the machine. With the jumps it is important to spend a lot of time planning and measuring. As with building houses, measure twice and cut once, don't just blindly start pushing at a jump, think about where you want all the jumps to be in relation to each other. Design with other people and talk it over, that's when you get the best outcome when you involve other people in the planning, get feedback off riders and photographers.
DCMT: What annoys you most about recreational slope users?
GB: I get frustrated by people who don't really understand how much work has gone into building a jump or park set-up, and so not respecting that. I don't mean just me, but the management of the ski resort and the diggers, everyone that makes it happen. A lot of people are so focused on their own enjoyment, I mean that's great that people are there for fun but, it's strange they don't seem to realise the amount of work that goes into creating their pleasure parks. Also when stuff is left in my way and I have to get out and move it can be a real pain.
DCMT: Do you have any other projects on the go?
GB: I'm starting a freelance consulting service: building and advice or training on how to make a park.
DCMT: What's the most impressive thing you've seen built?
GB: I guess the standard of halfpipes nowadays, they are so perfect and nice looking. The Planet Snow guys do a real good job building halfpipes. But small creative things are cool too, when it doesn't take that much time with the machine, but it's so original and unique – more thinking and less trunk work. I've been building a lot of these butter box things lately because everyone loves them. I'm not always impressed by the biggest and craziest jumps but I like stuff that everyone can use and everyone can jump. Features that suit beginners to pros, something you can learn on and have fun on rather than just for the spectacle. I've always worked for small resorts because you have to think creatively instead of pumping money into one huge park.
Posted by Andy Cremin - Thu, 25/09/2008 - 4:37pm
We've taken a peek into the mysterious nocturnal world of jet-setting snowcat driver Geoff Bostwick
There's a fair few unsung heroes in the world (and many far more deserving of praise than jumped up little squirts who just get to go snowboarding everyday) but in addition to your more conventional karma collectors, there are a host of people that make the mountain and snowboard network tick (albeit in a rather haphazard fashion) and without who our dearly beloved sport would be, well, not as good. We got in touch with US born Geoff Bostwick while he was taking his summer vacation; to see exactly how hard it is to drive a souped-up lawn mower over jumps all night long?
DCMT: When did you get into snowboarding?
GB: I was born an hour and a half north of New York, near the Catskill Mountains. I guess I first stepped on a snowboard at 12 years old, and that was it, I was hooked. From 12 to 22-ish, I was obsessed, I lived and breathed all the magazines and videos, and it was my whole life. I wanted to be a pro, I'd jump on my trampoline everyday for the whole summer, obsessively, but I just don't have enough balls and a couple of bad injuries knocked that on the head. I still love it, but it's not the only thing in my life now, I want to be able to walk when I'm older and I find it difficult to make good judgements about when to stop or what not to do.
DCMT: What led you to terrain park shaping?
GB: I started instructing at 16 years old, then the guy who was building the park kinda' got all frustrated, and I made these drawings and presented them to the cat driving guys. I started sitting in the machines and telling them where to push the snow, it's hard to explain park building to someone else though, you're essentially trying to tell someone how to make a sculpture or to paint, which is hard. Eventually they got tired of listening to me and told me, 'You do it'.
DCMT: So when did you drive a snowcat for the first time?
GB: At Windham Mountain, I'd been watching the drivers for ages so I knew what I wanted to do, but it's still scary, it can be intimidating when you first drive the snowcat, you can do a lot of damage pretty easily to a 13 tonne, $300 000 machine. And you don't want to mess up in case they don't let you do anymore. That had become my dream; to build snowboard parks.
DCMT: Where do you work now?
GB: I work for the most part at Echo Mountain (echomtnpark.com) in Colorado. But then in the summer I've been working at Folgefonna Snowboard Camp in Norway (folgefonna.no) for a bunch of years and I do some other projects. This passed year I went to Russia and built a park there, at the Flammable Camp in Dombai. That was really fun, great people and a great mountain.
DCMT: What is the work like, how many hours are you driving a night?
GB: In Colorado I do 40 hours in three days; one 18-hour day and then two 11-hour days. We groom the park and trail every night; that takes seven hours before we have even started fixing rails or landings. I work a lot by choice, just to get it done.
DCMT: When do you get to sleep?
GB: I sleep during the day and work at night then switch around for the weekend, which is hard.
DCMT: What is your most valuable asset in the cab?
GB: You definitely need an iPod to get you through a long night. I listen to audio books, podcasts and all kinds of stuff. You're driving really, really slow; it's like mowing the lawn.
DCMT: How do you see in the dark?
GB: There are lights on the machine. The dark isn't really too much of a problem, up in Norway the fog is the problem. Sometimes in the dark it is easier to see with the shadows and textures. You do need a lot of patience though; you've got to be a patient person to build a park. There's a lot of monotony; pushing a big pile snow, backing up, going forward, backing up, going forward… Try that in your driveway in the car for 12 hours and see if you get bored! I wish I could have someone push the piles and I'll just come in and shape things, one day maybe, ha-ha.
DCMT: What cat machine do you drive?
GB: The machine is normally a Park Bully, you can lift the front blade and rear tiller higher and lower than normal, which helps you groom things high up or low-down. Pretty much the industry standard, and easiest machine for making transitions, are from a Swiss company, Zaugg. Their halfpipe cutter is the best because it is really durable compared to a lot of other pipe cutters. And it takes the snow and blows it up over the halfpipe wall, as opposed to other cutters where you have to cut it and clean more snow out of the pipe with a separate machine. Some people say the Pipe Dragon leaves a better finish with regard to groom marks but usually they don't last long anyway and for the ease of building I prefer the Zaugg cutter.
DCMT: Is the job dangerous?
GB: It can be dangerous for the cat driver, every year someone dies because they run themselves over – they put on a break in a machine so that nothing moves, take a piss and a jacket catches on a control or something malfunctions. You have to be super safe and make sure the brakes are on and it's all secure each time you get out. But it can also be dangerous for people working around the machine. You need to be looking where you're going and ensure you're beeping light is on etc.
DCMT: How dangerous is it to ride around the slopes when the machine is working on a winch, with a cable pulling it up the slope or over steep landings?
GB: It's very dangerous to be near a cable because there is so much tension and there could be lateral tension as well. The cable could get caught on something and if it whips to one side it could kill someone. In Europe they're less strict but in the States they cordon off the whole area when snowcats are using a cable.
DCMT: What are the most valuable lessons you have learnt?
GB: There is the operation side of it and the park logistics side of it. How you operate the machine; you need to be slow and careful and not try to push too much snow at once. There are certain movements that put pressure on the machine in different ways – you learn these over time and it's really important not to break the machine. With the jumps it is important to spend a lot of time planning and measuring. As with building houses, measure twice and cut once, don't just blindly start pushing at a jump, think about where you want all the jumps to be in relation to each other. Design with other people and talk it over, that's when you get the best outcome when you involve other people in the planning, get feedback off riders and photographers.
DCMT: What annoys you most about recreational slope users?
GB: I get frustrated by people who don't really understand how much work has gone into building a jump or park set-up, and so not respecting that. I don't mean just me, but the management of the ski resort and the diggers, everyone that makes it happen. A lot of people are so focused on their own enjoyment, I mean that's great that people are there for fun but, it's strange they don't seem to realise the amount of work that goes into creating their pleasure parks. Also when stuff is left in my way and I have to get out and move it can be a real pain.
DCMT: Do you have any other projects on the go?
GB: I'm starting a freelance consulting service: building and advice or training on how to make a park.
DCMT: What's the most impressive thing you've seen built?
GB: I guess the standard of halfpipes nowadays, they are so perfect and nice looking. The Planet Snow guys do a real good job building halfpipes. But small creative things are cool too, when it doesn't take that much time with the machine, but it's so original and unique – more thinking and less trunk work. I've been building a lot of these butter box things lately because everyone loves them. I'm not always impressed by the biggest and craziest jumps but I like stuff that everyone can use and everyone can jump. Features that suit beginners to pros, something you can learn on and have fun on rather than just for the spectacle. I've always worked for small resorts because you have to think creatively instead of pumping money into one huge park.