Development Snowparks News

Story on the Global Cutter and John Melville in the Wanaka Sun newspaper (NZ)

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:43:00 -1200

Wanaka Sun 19/1/12

Torah Bright talks about the Global Cutter video

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:37:00 -1200

Torah Bright, Olympic half pipe gold medalist and her coach Ben Bright talk about John Melville from Development Snowparks and the Global Cutter during the spring training camp at Snow Park NZ 2011

Global Cutter on the cover of the Analog 2013 brochure

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:19:00 -1200

Snow Park NZ Winter 2011

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:36:00 -1200

The Snow Park NZ 2011 winter was a new contract for me and had a whole lot of new challenges, but I must say i was super happy with the outcome.

The highlight of my season was working on features other than the pipe, as I'm normally in the "Dude Tube" for most of the winter. The slopestyle and QP with a hip extension was another highlight.

Having new staff to manage was a new challenge but one that I was up for and I feel proud to have been part of a new team that got stuck in and got the jobs done on time with little to no issues.
The season started incredibly slow, with absolutely zero snow through June, once July came, a big storm came through setting us up and bringing cold temps to really get the fan guns running.

Once this had happened it was catch up time, as we still needed to build many features and the park was already open. It was for sure a juggle to have things to build and nightly grooming, as well so unfortunately we had to close some areas while we worked during the day. This wasn't the plan of course but thats how things need to work when mother nature is actually the one in charge. In a perfect season, we would like to have built the major features before the park actually opened for business.

The new 400 cats ran flawlessly and I could highly recommend the 400's as a top freestyle work horse. The Global Cutter also ran great on the 400W and the extra output from the 3rd pump gave the Cutter additional torque and running RPM.

Another key component of 2011 was the snowmaking team and system. The crew did a fantastic job of going over every gun, removing and cleaning every nosel and filter which showed signs of hindering the system in the past. After the electrical was checked also, the system fired up no problem and gave us a great result under the control of the Team leader Daz. We blew in excess of 110 million litres in what was a very short and intense snowmaking season. However we did make snow for 2 nights in mid September, which was a first for me but the decision became a small life saver as the temps came up sharply after and gave us some new white snow to paste over the brown coming through.

After the extensive event season (Electric Quarterpipe, Billabong Bro Down Slopestyle, Winter Games Slopestyle - Freeski and Snowboard and the Freeski Open) I am planning some improvements in the Slopestyle to be made, look out for a longer course at the top with more speed and unique jib features. The pipe ran into some issues as well with some ice coming through in the lower left wall, mainly from running to many guns at once in the pipe. It was an issue of playing catch up so hopefully we won't experience this again.

The modular boxes from Doors in Italy added another dimension for jibbing at SPNZ. The new design allows for screwless plastic and patented, seated coping. This makes for a super slick riding surface. I think the addition of several steeper kinks (15 deg) will be added for the coming season, especially for the Slopestyle course.

Thanks to Davide as well, from Doors who meticulously worked on the final shaping of many of the competition and photo shoot features which gave them the great final look of definition and sharpness. Like any top operation, the make up of the team is really how things get done.

I'm going to be looking forward to seeing the Transfer magazine photo shoot that will be out next season. This was super fun to work on with Johnny Mac and the team. I'm not going to give to much away, but we put over 40 litres of petrol on the fire on the last night. Not sure how you can jump over a fire ball that big but the guys did...

Moving on, The grooming crew was outstanding, with guys like Jamie, Scotty and Disco behind the controls, it was no wonder the snowcats had absolutely no issues of damage. This is a very rare thing for a team but not even one grouser on any cat broke during the course of the season, and we pushed those cats too! Park building and grooming is normally pretty hard on the equipment. The season rounded off well with the pipe camp and the bag setup. It was great to see the earthwork paid off with the bag cut outs at the ends of the pipe. We will be hoping to use the backside cut out next spring. Look out for I Pods new double from the camp and Torahs very generous video feedback on the pipe who I cannot thank enough for this. It is absolute gold for me, er excuse the ..... A special mention goes out also to Benny Bright who has always got my back, Ben Jolly, Marco Bruni and Nugg for all there efforts and input on the camp.

My next season will be in the Northern Hemphisphere based in Europe - I'll be at FlauchauWinkl in Austria, Laax in Switzerland and Sierra Nevada in Spain from January to April so I'll keep the updates coming from Europe.

John.

Electric Quarter Pipe Battle

Pipe build during the Electric Quarter Pipe Battle

Triple Line and Pipe looking good

Doors Rails and Boxes arriving at the workshop

Slopestyle during the Winter Games

Last feature in the Winter Games Slopestyle

Davide from Doors

Billabong BroDown Slopestyle

More Billabong BroDown Slopestyle - the Monster Snowcano

Transfer Magazine Day Shoot

More Transfer Magazine Day Shoot

Red Bull End of season Pipe Camp

Shaping during the pipe camp

Global Cutter perfect cord

More perfect cord

Whistler Blackcomb's Global Cutter pipe during the 2010/11 season

Mon, 16 May 2011 15:55:00 -1200

Whistler Blackcomb's new 22' Global Cutter shaped pipe opened in January this year earlier than scheduled due to substantial snow falls that helped things along.

Heres a video showing the pipe build in December, a word from John Melville while he was in Whistler commissioning the shaper and some rider footage from Whistler's spring festival in April - the Telus Ski and Snowboard Festival.

Development Snowparks 22' Global Cutter at Whistler Blackcomb from Lucas Ouellette on Vimeo.

Global Cutter demo in Italy

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 21:24:00 -1200

The Global Cutter has now made it's European debut at a successful demo and FIS Snowboard World Cup in Bardonnechia, Italy. We shipped the demo machine over to Italy from New Zealand back in late December for its arrival in early March.

Development Snowparks was excited to have partnered with Doors Snowpark Structures from Turino for the Global Cutter to have representation in Italy and to host the contest and demo.

The weather was on our side for both the contest (9 - 11 March) and demo the following day (12 March) at Bardonnechia (the venue for the snowboard half pipe at the Turino 2006 Winter Olympics). Bardonnechia already had an existing 18' pipe in place for the season so we had to rebuild and increase the wall height to 22'. The grade of the earth structure was 16.5 degrees with a length of 150m. The pipe in early March had one really cold, hard wall and the other was soft and spring like so we had ideal conditions to demo the machine in but first was the contest.

The container arrived on site 6 days before the contest just as we were finishing off the walls to height. (We were lucky the container arrived at all as the ship it was on got held up in Shanghai from New Zealand due to the unrest in Egypt so 6 days wasn't much time but it had to be enough!) After a really quick and easy assembly of the shaper (with the help of a crane) we started with some cuts to get the shape in then moved to doing the straightening work with the chainsaw. We then cut back to the line and filled in the floor to get the correct height. During the last couple of days before the contest we chose to only run the shaper during the day so we could take advantage of the sun working on the walls and therefore achieving a great finish.

The pipe was ready for training with a width of 20m and a wall height the full 6.7m (22'). The contest days were no different to the build phase with clear blue skies allowing the walls to soften slightly in the sun so we couldn't ask for better conditions for the riders. The Aussie's cleaned up the top podium spots and it ended up a great contest from some top riders. The stand out riders to me with Arthur Longo and Nate Johnstone.

The day after the World Cup was the demo day and we began by being introduced to the resorts that had come to see the Global Cutter operating. Conditions were perfect for paddling up the walls so within a couple of passes the pipe was finished. The shape also held up extremely well from the contest the day before. The demo was proceeded by a night opening of the pipe under lights for the Russian team to train and make full use of the shaping.

Special thanks goes out to the Snowpark Doors guys, Cristian, Luca, Davide and Massimo for helping Development Snowparks out to no end! It was a great help to have a dedicated team to organise all the needs for the Italian Demo. Thanks also to Bardonecchia who of course allowed us to run their machines for the demo and for also choosing to using a Global Cutter for the World Cup. Development Snowparks looks forward to working together in the future with Doors Snowparks again as well as potentially with Bardonecchia and other resorts that came to see the demo.

The conclusion of the Italian demo marked the end of a busy Northern Hemisphere contracting for Development Snowparks and now I'm back home in the Southern Alps of New Zealand planning a busy winter season. Check back soon for some major developments for the NZ season being finalised at the moment or like us on facebook and find the news out sooner.

Pushing the new wall height

Unpacking the shrink wrapped Global Cutter from the container

The boom breaks down into 2 pieces for transporting in a 20' container

Attaching the chain with the help of a crane made for a quick and easy assembly

The shaper assembled and ready to go

Walls roughed in and about to start chainsawing the vert

Straightening the walls

Climbing up the pipe in between straightening the walls

More straightening

Finishing passes

Pipe ready to go on contest morning

Ready for the start of training

Men's winner Nathan Johnstone (Photo: FIS)

Pipe in the middle of the contest day (Photo: FIS)

Night time training after the demo day

China Snowboard World Cup half pipe

Sat, 19 Feb 2011 19:55:00 -1200

It was definitely some of the coldest conditions I have dealt with in some time at the World Cup half pipe in Yabuli, China with temps of minus 29 in the evening and minus 15 during the day. The chainsaw didn't like it much either!

The first ever World Cup pipe in China. Photo credit: FIS

The local guys did a great job of keeping the pipe nice and straight before I arrived so it was just a matter of cutting the walls more open and getting the decks straight. It was the first time also where I pretty much worked only during the day light hours! The lights for the pipe site made the pipe look fantastic at night and the training was great at night also. Apparently the riders' boards didn't like the snow conditions much with the snow temp at minus 27, so the wax lasted for about half a run. The riding for qualifying went well with Nate Johnstone from Australia being a stand out and eventually winning. It was a shame I had to get on a plane for Italy before seeing the night finals but thats the way it goes some times. The next lot of news will be all about the Demo 22ft Global Cutter for the Bardonecchia World Cup in Italy in March.

Nate Johnstone, mens winner. Photo credit: FIS

Whistler Blackcomb's new 22' Global Cutter

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 15:45:00 -1200

The Global Cutter shaped 22' Blackcomb pipe opened in early January with some pretty testing times getting it built. Instead of a lack of snow like this time last year it was the total opposite with the pipe filling up with natural snow as we were trying to build and shape and it just kept coming.

Global Cutter starting to shape in the Blackcomb pipe

Thanks to Steve Petrie from Arena Snowparks for doing a great pipe build and allowing me to get straight in and start cutting with the Global Cutter. Thanks also to Mark from the Alpine shop for helping out get the GC assembled on time and getting everything going.
The snow conditions were quite cold and was generally snowy so the GC had plenty of work to do. Of course the situation with the weather meant that the opening day of the pipe was one that was hard to even find where the pipe was!? The opening dimension was 20m wide, 17 deg inclination and 160m long. I hear that there are now plenty of people enjoying the new big shape and making the most of it. Steve tells me that they were still queing at 3pm to get some hits in the pipe. I wish all the guys from the crew at WB all the best with the cutter and also hope as many people as possible sample the pipe and enjoy the riding.

Also a big thanks goes out to Ken and Renee for all the hard work they are putting in shaping with the machine every night, Marty for all the back up, and finally Stan and Dave for making it all happen.

Last but not least to the riders, make your support known to us all - send me a message about your feedback, follow our news on facebook, buy the guys who are shaping a beer when you see them at the pub and of course enjoy the pipe, be safe and have fun.

Demo 22' Global Cutter in Italy

Mon, 27 Dec 2010 11:17:00 -1200

Development Snowparks is to have it's first European Global Cutter demo this March in Bardonnechia, Italy where the 2006 Winter Olympics snowboarding events were held.

The demo 22' Global Cutter was packed into a container and left NZ a week after the Whistler shaper and is due to arrive in Italy mid February. It's going to be demonstrated and used to shape the pipe for the FIS Snowboard World Cup at Bardonnechia from 11 - 13 March 2011. John will be arriving in Italy just after the shaper and will be commissioning it and shaping the pipe during the build up to and for the actual event. Prior to the World Cup in Italy he will also be creating the course for the River Jump TTR 5 star slopestyle at Livigno (22 - 25 February). John would have already shaped several FIS competition pipes before he arrives in Italy this season, next on his event schedule is the Winter Universiade in Erzurum, Turkey in late January. Then he'll be in Yabuli, China for their Snowboard World Cup 11 -13 February.

Heres a photo of Danny Kass in the 18' pipe in Bardonnechia at the Turino 2006 Olympics. We'll have photos up of the 22' Global Cutter halfpipe after the event in March.

22' Global Cutter sale to Whistler Blackcomb

Tue, 02 Nov 2010 13:28:00 -1200

We are pleased to announce that we have recently completed a sale of a 22' Global Cutter to Whistler Blackcomb in BC, Canada after providing them with a demo shaper in April this year.

The WB shaper is well into construction and is scheduled to be delivered and commissioned in early January. Development Snowparks is once again teaming up with Steve Petrie of Arena Snowparks to commission the Global Cutter and build the pipe at Blackcomb Mountain. Excitement is building at WB about their upgrade from a 18' pipe to 22' and Bob Dafour, Vice President of Mountain Operations commented that 'We are all looking forward to having the Global Cutter on Whistler Blackcomb and feel that this addition to our program will be an instant hit with all of our pipe users.'

Whistler Blackcomb have released this video on their new Park and Pipe developments for 2010 including the Global Cutter.

Cutters' Camp West round up

Sat, 22 May 2010 16:01:00 -1200

Well its been a trip for sure, now that I think of it back at home. It was 6 weeks of demos to Whistler Blackcomb and the SAM Cutters Camp west at Timberline, Mt Hood.

The response about the Global Cutter's shape and finish has been really positive and gives me some confidence about the future it has in North America. Thanks to the Timberline workshop staff for helping me unload and load the shaper into the container and getting it packed up for heading back to NZ.

Staying at Timberline Lodge for the Cutters Camp was something else, waking up to a cooked breakfast everyday in the super nice lodge, then walking outside and jumping in the cats demo-ing for the day, and the weather was pretty much perfect as well. The 3 days of camp broke down into 1 inside classroom style day and 2 outside days on snow with cats and shapers etc. For the demo area of the shaper I built a 22ft quarter pipe and set up the laser guidance system on the deck. I'd then demo it to each operator as they came around from demo-ing other machinery and they also had a turn trying it out. Lots of the operators commented on it being really good performance in the spring snow and that it was pretty easy to use. Thanks to all the SAM crew for eveything and I'm sure everyone liked the last night that the Global Cutter sponsored, it sure was a good one as my head told me the next day.

I'll be back for another Cutters next year, so until then you can catch me back in the southern lakes in NZ for the southern hemisphere winter.

Arriving at Timberline with the truck, trailer and shaper after I drove it all down from Whistler.

I was able to keep the shaper together for the drive down rather than pulling it apart into several pieces, it just needed a lot of strops.

The 22' quarter with me on the deck

Laser guidance tripod set up with the receiver on the boom

Perfect corduroy finish

Demo-ing the shaper

Parked up and waiting for the next demo

Demo Global Cutter in Whistler

Fri, 30 Apr 2010 12:13:00 -1200

The 22' Global Cutter has been really well received during its recent demo at the Telus World Ski & Snowboard Festival during April.

Steve from Arena Snowparks and I rebuilt the existing 18' pipe at Blackcomb into a 22' pipe for the World Skiing Invitational and the Grenade Games. I put in some long days but managed to get the pipe open early so the public was able to ride it before the competitions started. We received some great feedback from both the skiers and snowboarders at both comps. They immediately recongnised the difference in shape to previous pipes they'd ridden and that it's shape was definitely superior. There were also lots of encouraging comments about the wall to wall corduroy that the Global Cutter produces and that the riders were really into it.

So overall it was a pretty successful demo for the Global Cutter's first time in North America. I'm packing up the shaper in the next few days and making the trip down to Mt. Hood, Oregon for the SAM magazine Cutters' Camp West where I'll be joined by Steve again and we'll be holding another demo for all the park and pipe operators at the Camp. Then it's back to New Zealand at the end of May to finish off the new 22' shaper for Snowpark, NZ and straight back into the Southern Hemisphere winter.

Thanks to the staff at Whislter Blackcomb for hosting the Global Cutter and myself and I look forward to working with them all again.

Heres some photos from during the pipe rebuild process as well as some from the comps.

The Global Cutter all ready to go for start of the Blackcomb pipe rebuild

Rough cutting and things are going smoothly

Demo shaper in action in Whistler

Close up of the shaper in action and John in the cab

More rough cutting

World Skiing Invitational

World Skiing Invitational again

Grenade Games practice

Photo: Paul Atwood

Grenade Games pipe - not cold, not warm, just spring

Super huge, smooth transitions produced by the 22' Global Cutter

22' Global Cutter sale to Snow Park NZ

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 11:09:00 -1200

It's confirmed, we've recently completed a sale of a 22' Global Cutter to Snow Park NZ with delivery in less than 12 weeks. Snow Park have big plans for their pipe this season and are going to have it open on 26th June so it's all go with getting the new shaper underway for them.

Sam Lee, the General Manager of Snow Park said "John's knowledge and experience in the industry is extremely admirable and we are really looking forward to putting his cutter into action for the 2010 season." That's a pretty flattering comment about my work so I'm really pleased that Development Snowparks is going to be a part of Snow Park's upgrade to a 22' pipe. I'm getting Steve of Arena Snowparks down here from Canada to work with me on providing the half pipe commissioning to Snow Park once the shaper is delivered. Steve and I last worked together at the Olympics as head contractor and sub-contractor respectively to build and shape the pipe at Cypress.

Well I'm off to Canada in a week to meet the demo shaper in Vancouver and get it up to Whistler for the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival in mid April.

Snow Park's current 18' pipe

Demo Global Cutter shipped to Vancouver

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 21:12:00 -1200

I'm stoked to say we've just packed and shipped the demo 22' shaper into a 20' container bound by ship for Vancouver. It'll arrive in 3 weeks and then will be transported to Whistler where I'll use it to build and shape the pipe for the Grenade Games and the World Skiing Invitational at the end of April. The Grenade Games (21 - 24 April) and the WSI (World Skiing Invitational 19 - 20 April) are both part of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival (16 - 25 April)

It was a tight fit getting the 3 broken down parts of the machine into the container but it's all in; cutters and laser guidance gear included. The frame of the shaper is constructed in 3 parts so it allows it to break down and fit into a container. The base plate is one and the boom frame breaks down to the 2nd and 3rd parts. Steve Petrie from Arena Snowparks and me will be the next to see it again when it arrives at Whistler Blackcomb. See all you Vancouver and Whistler people again soon.

The demo Global Cutter slides into place in the container

Making the final adjustments to the strops. It's a tight fit but it fits!

Vancouver 2010 Olympics: the full story

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:01:00 -1200

It's been 2 weeks since the hecticness of the pipe contest and I've been back home in NZ for just over a week now, it's good to be home again catching whats left of summer. It hasn't been all about catching up on sleep since I've been back though, I've been getting the demo Global Cutter ready and packed up for shipping to Vancouver. I'll blog about that soon but for now heres the story about our how me and the ASP crew got the pipe built for the Olympics.

The gear involved:
2 Piston Bully 600 stick winches
2 Piston bully 400 park bullys
1 pisten bully 400 active winch
Global Cutter laser guidance system
2 Zaugg 22fters
2 chain saws
4 park monkey fertiliser spreaders
6 dye packs
4 scandinavian shaper vert shovels
15 scandinavian shaper rakes

Vancouver and the west coast weather didn't hold back on us and delivered some difficult and trying snow conditions right from the start.

After the initial 120cm base in late november, the snow was turning to rain. The first days of work were quickly called off. These days saw massive rain falls and waterfalls down into the carparks. This kept up for a week. The common call from some was "just like NZ eh" and my reply, "ah,.. not really . This is the hardest rain I've ever seen on a ski resort"

During the down time, the use off hay bales was brought up and soon used. The end of the earth structure finished very steep, and would use considereable snow to extend the walls, so 30 bales were included in the end. After we eventually had a clearance in the weather the pushing began. The man made pile of snow at the top of the pipe had shrunk quite a substantual amount but holding off before cutting into it had payed off.
Panorama, the adjacent run was also stripped clean of snow and we added to the man made as the walls were pushed. 600 winches proved there weight in gold as the climbing without a winch was impossible. The laser guidance system was also heavily used during the initial stages with setting bench marks on grade, straight line pushing from inside the pipe and cross slope checks to ensure both walls were the correct height and grade.

As the huge pile got pushed into place we were pleasently surprised with the snow consumption, making out the rough shape on both walls. Not a single blade of snow had come out the bottom yet. We were truely working inside our clean snow island where no other contaminated brown snow cats could enter. The final grading of the decks together showed that the last days of warmth and rain had made the decks sag, meaning the walls would be shorter, so we adopted the snow blower by blowing snow on the decks. While this was happening the shovel crew were getting started so the boys stayed busy with 200 sheets of ply for the form boarding of the outside of the decks. This saved any snow being lost outside the decks, as we knew the decks needed width.

The zaugging was a relatively simple procedure with the saw line at 19.5m wide and the rough shape being consistant from top to bottom. The snow conditions being soft allowed to rough shape quickly. We completed the decks and a day later the lighting guys moved in with the light placement. At this stage snow was getting very hard to come by, so again the hay bales were used in the drop in from the scaffold start podium. The remaining snow was used to cover the hay but more was needed for the drop in transition.This is where the sky crane comes in, 7 tons in one drop, 16 drops in a 45 min "cycle". This chopper was one of the special things I think I will only see at an event like the olympics.

The helied snow was soon used up as the floor was also leveled up and the finish area pushed out. With the final shaping the weather was starting to improve, but this was a mixed blessing. The floor didn't set up for the first day of training and the back side wall was set up about 2cms only. The left over sugar after training was cleaned out, meaning the remaining wall was deeper and wider. The clearing weather created the perfect conditions for pipe finishing and last day of training.

The show began with a monster double shift that night with another cutting and grooming straght after training that allowed the pipe to sit and set up for the next afternoon riding schedule. We couldnt believe our luck after battling with the weather for so long that it was a perfect bluebird and a clear calm night for the mens contest. The qualifers showed a particular pattern of riders going huge and technical so it was fitting to see these guys in finals. And finals didnt disappoint with a display that was pure jaw dropping. This was definitely the most excited I have been in a competition. I really did not want to see anyone get hurt, as the tricks were so serious that crashing would be huge.

After the excitement was over, we swung straight into another preparation for the womens. The shaping and riding in the dry, cool evening created a large build up of sugar, so the remaining result was again to cut down into the floor and wider . The following day was clear and warm so having a tighter field of riders was a bonus. Again during the day we added fertiliser from the park monkeys to create a firm colder base. The womans showed a great competition as the #1 spot shuffled from riders. Congrats to all the riders and coaches, on and off the podiums for the great show.
Thanks to Steve and all the Arena Snowparks crew that stepped up and allowed the show to go on in the most challenging conditions. And of course Steve for getting me out there to help. It was now over and time to have a beer and get some sleep!

See more photos of the build process in photos

Vancouver 2010 Olympic half pipe ready for 1st day of training