Freestyle is becoming lifestyle at Mount Snow

Boarders have been drawn to the terrain parks and halfpipes at Mount Snow's Carinthia. (File/The Boston Globe)

WEST DOVER, Vt. - In his lime green jacket, Shane McFalls is easy to spot from the lift as he launches his twin-tip skis from snow to rail, rotates 180 degrees, and lands nicely before setting up for his next leap on Nitro.

He makes flight seem effortless.

"If I'm wearing a bright green coat, I feel I have do to something more interesting," says the 22-year-old freestyle skier from Wilmington.

Mount Snow in Southern Vermont is definitely doing something interesting this winter with its terrain parks and halfpipes. Instead of sprinkling them throughout the resort, the resort has put them all on the slopes of Carinthia, turning it into the face of freestyle.

If shaped skis rejuvenated the ski industry and snowboarding saved it, Mount Snow is banking on freestyle being the next elixir.

For general manager Kelly Pawlak, 43, this is just a natural progression. As a kid, she skied Pats Peak in Henniker, N.H., and recalled being disciplined by ski patrol for building jumps and skiing in the woods.

"If I could have looked into the future, Carinthia would have been it," she said. "Why not? We're just giving people what they naturally want."

Innovation has been a Mount Snow signature since ex-Marine and snowmaking pioneer Walter Schoenknecht opened the area in 1954 with just seven trails on the site of a former farm. Over the years, Mount Snow would grow to include such novelties as brightly colored egg-shaped gondolas (which skiers entered with their skis on) and a 350-foot geyser - Fountain Mountain - that froze and became a ski hill.

Snowboarding proved more than a fad, and Mount Snow unveiled the region's first snowboard park in 1992, Un Blanco Gulch. The X Games were held at Mount Snow in 2000 and 2001 and featured top international athletes such as Mount Snow Academy snowboarder Kelly Clark, who won Olympic gold in the halfpipe in 2002.

The 102-trail mountain is located in an area rich in winter freestyle sports. To the north on Route 100 is Stratton, home of the 2009 Burton US Open. Olympic gold medalist Ross Powers is an ambassador at Okemo. Killington hosts the Grand Prix in March.

Mount Snow will entertain the Winter Dew Tour January 8-11, attracting top skiers and snowboarders such as Clark, Simon Dumont, and Shaun White.

Steve Kwasniewski, head snowboard coach at Mount Snow Academy, says having the parks in one area will be a tremendous benefit to freestylers.

"This will be better consolidated instead of having the parks scattered all over the mountain," Kwasniewski said. "Also, some recreational skiers want nothing to do with parks and pipes. This way we don't run into anybody. In the past, we could sometimes clash."

On the south side of the resort, Carinthia was a neighboring 14-trail area acquired by Mount Snow in 1986. Characterized with easygoing runs and some narrow cutovers, Carinthia was the quiet side with a small base lodge that has been renovated with a snowboard shop, outdoor skate ramp, couches, flat-screen televisions, and video game stations. Trails like Mine Shaft, Nitro, and Upper and Lower Titanium are now part of a 100-acre park system that when fully operational will have a dozen terrain parks for various abilities, two half-pipes, and about 125 features, including boxes, rails, and jumps at Carinthia.

Carinthia has its own rangers and crew to maintain and patrol the mountain, which can prove challenging on busy days. Two lifts service the hill, and plans call for a superpipe (The Inferno, which was an X Games highlight) and a scaled-down mini-pipe.

Pawlak has been at the mountain since 1985, when American Skiing Company owned Mount Snow and nearby Haystack Ski Area. She said ASC had considered merging the two resorts, but those plans changed when Peak Resorts bought Mount Snow. Peak Resorts owns 10 other ski areas in six states, including Big Boulder, an all-freestyle mountain in Pennsylvania's Poconos.

"Peak Resorts is definitely the driver here," Pawlak said.

Change isn't easy. As Carinthia has undergone its freestyle facelift, some skiers have voiced their displeasure.

"The folks who spend a lot of time at Carinthia have definitely told us their concerns," said Pawlak.

Only time will tell if Carinthia will go the way of the egg-shaped gondola or if X will mark the spot at Mount Snow once again.