After dishing out nearly a grand for a season pass, I went to the resort’s web site for a snow report and saw this message: “Due to the fact that uptight soccer moms get lawsuit-happy when their kids get their shit rolled in the terrain park, we’re closing it down. Enjoy the groomers, and thanks for your money, suckers.”

While some resorts continue to build innovative features to help riders progress (thank you Tahoe, Whistler, and Park City), others have succumbed to the onslaught of personal injury lawyers and dumbed down their parks or removed them altogether—an honorable middle finger goes out to the ’bird. Things have gotten so bad that SLC local Jeremy Jones now claims Northstar as his local resort. WTF is that?

After hearing the terrible news about Snowbird and bitching endlessly, we came upon a solution—raid a junkyard and create our own features. The DogFunk crew needs something to session at lunchtime anyway. Our simple three-feature mini terrain park cost about $60 (less than a single-day lift ticket at most resorts), and it provides hours of harmless (well, almost) entertainment whenever we need a little break.

Step 1: Raid Junkyard

• Tetanus shots are a good idea before beginning this step.
• Aluminum costs over a buck a pound, while steel costs only ten cents a pound.
• Don’t get so focused on finding rails that you forget to grab some material for the legs. Get more leg material than you think you’ll need, because you’ll need it all.
• Don’t get anything that’s too thick. Drilling a 3/8th inch hole through a 1/8th inch piece of steel isn’t a problem. The same hole in a ¼-inch piece of steel can be a serious pain in the ass.

Step 2: Build Stuff

• No welder? No problem. You don’t need anything but a drill, hacksaw, and some bolts.
• The Dremel tool is your friend. If you have one, use it.

• Grind off all the burrs for a smooth ride. Few things suck worse than getting snagged and face-planting on a piece of steel.
• Make them tough as shit. You don’t want your rails breaking when you’re on them.

• This is also a good time to detune your board (one that you’ll only use for rails). Just hold a file at a 45-degree angle to your edge, and go to town, or better yet, use the Dremel tool. When you can look at and say “damn, that would suck on ice” it’s just right.

Step 3: Admire your work

Box ($15.00): The most obvious pick in the scrapyard was this server cabinet. All it needed was a place to sit. Instant fun box, no construction required.

Pipe ($10.00): This thing screamed “give me a pair of legs and session me until you can’t walk anymore.” How do you say no to that?

Conveyor ($35.00): We found this jewel in the aluminum pile. It was more expensive than all the steel stuff combined, but anyone who has ever worked in a warehouse has stared longingly at the conveyor belt and wondered…

Step 4: Session