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Four New Snowcats Arrive at Meadows Including the Bison X Freestyle Terrain Groomer

10/13/2011 10:29:00 AM by Meadows Team in Parks Blog, Connection, Media Center | 9 comments

Our four new snowcats arrived Tuesday on a day when wintry rain transitioned into snow. Three of the Prinoth cats are BR-350s - the workhorse of our grooming fleet that you've seen us use for several years. Grooming Manager Rob Gayman describes the BR-350 as a workhorse, reliable and powerful capable of tackling the extreme weather and conditions.

Our new snowcat is the Bixon X - set up to specialize in freestyle terrain grooming. Additional maneuverability of both the front blade and rear tiller will help dial in the transitions, particularly on more irregularly shaped features, making park building and maintenance faster while improving the product, according to Freestyle Terrain Park Manager Jason Stankevich. It's also more fuel efficient, making it greener. Here's Jason to tell you all about the Bison X!

9 Comments

  1. James

    October 24, 2011

    Does this finally mean there will be bigger jumps? More advanced features?

    Meadows: Thanks for the question. Our parks will have appropriately sized features for the park and terrain it serves. The larger features will be in Park Place. Rose City will also have some large features. We are designing the parks for fun and progression. The new equipment shows our commitment to improving a quality freestyle experience.

  2. Jon

    October 24, 2011

    Bigger features! More advanced jumps? I hope the new groomer does work.

    Meadows: It is more powerful, and it also has greater flexibility in its blade and tiller controls. It will make it more efficient, providing more time for our cat operators to dial in the transitions. It will make an improvement to the experience!

  3. Captain

    October 24, 2011

    Big air. Large jumps please

    Meadows: Thank you. Let's get some snow. Then let's start building some jumps.

  4. jim

    November 1, 2011

    what should we expect in the parks this year? it would be sweet if you added in some more interesting features like cannon rails, butter box, stair drop, quaterpipes etc... it would also be nice to have the jumps in park place larger and mabey even with two levels of difficulty side by side, one large one medium.

    Meadows: Thanks for the comments - they are being shared with our parks crew.

  5. Ron

    November 2, 2011

    Great start getting the right snow cat for the job. Now it needs to be put to use. Bigger more, creative features that will allow the Meadows skiers and riders to progress beyond what you've offered in the past. You've made the investment in an awesome cat and we couldn't be happier, but it's all hype and a waste of your money if you don't build the kinds of features your riders are demanding. Look forward to seeing what you guys will bring us! Let it snow.

    Meadows: Couldn't agree with you more. Our crew is looking forward to getting this cat on the snow and building some fun and progressive features.

  6. John

    November 3, 2011

    PLEASE step up your game in the parks department this year, last season there was some serious slacking going on. Features should be changed up weekly (which rarely happened last season), larger jumps need to be built in order to progress, fun/interesting features that can be hit multiple ways need to be built, and park crews need to be working all day to insure take-offs and landings are smooth. I'm rooting for you, don't let us down.

    Meadows: We've shared your comment with our crew and they are motivated to keep the park experience at Meadows fun, progressive, interesting and relevant. Thanks for rooting for us - can't wait to start setting up features!

  7. Lucas

    November 4, 2011

    more varied jump lines please. it would be great if you could link 5 or more jumps in a line, with some step up/step down transitions/ different lip styles. make it super flowy/ make it super poppy..

    Meadows: Thanks for describing the improvements you would like to see in our parks. The specifics are very helpful. We are challenged to an extent by terrain at the optimal sustained pitch to create the flow you describe. This is best found at Park Place and Forest Park where we are able to link multiple features and offer variety as well. We're looking at changing up the line in Rose City for this purpose as well. Looking forward to great season of park riding!

  8. Jack

    November 17, 2011

    i hope that you guys will have mabey a rail or two ready in shipyard for opening weekend this weekend. that would be awesome! if not than when will we start seeing parks getting built, it would be nice to have a park ready early like timberline does. thanks

    Meadows: We'll be focusing on Shipyard adding features there until we get more snow to start opening up our other parks. It will be fun!

  9. River

    November 25, 2011

    Sounds like were on our way to victory! Let the snow fall!
    A stair set with a down rail and downledge would be sweet!
    And a nice jump line on park place with atleast four jumps, each of them with two different lips would be awesome.
    Hopefully this new cat will help you guys create some large jumps that have some great lips to them. Can't wait to see how it all turns out. Thanks guys!

    Meadows: Thanks for the suggestions. We're stoked about the snow, getting the season kicked off and adding more features and parks!

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