How to Make a Snowboarding Ramp

Wait for lots of fresh snow for the best conditions to build a snowboard ramp.

Building your own snowboarding ramp yields many benefits. You can get away from the crowds at a commercial snowboarding site, and it's a project you can do on your own or with a few of your snowboarding friends. You also get to choose your location. If the landing zone is in white powder, the risk of getting hurt if you fall is significantly reduced. Not all ramps are built well, and you should plan to devote at least an hour or two to the enterprise make it worthwhile. Learn the proper building techniques and you will have an ideal site for perfecting new tricks.

Things You'll Need

• Shovels
• Snow

Instructions

1. Find the perfect location. This is perhaps the most important part of the process. Ride around the mountain or hike to a spot you know of and scope for the right conditions, a wide-open area--with little or no trees or rocks--and a steep landing zone. You'll need about 100 feet of open space above the jump for a smooth, easy, in-run to the ramp. Ideally, you want to build the ramp on a relatively flat area of a hill that has a slight slope above the ramp and a steeper landing zone.

2. Shovel snow into a big pile. Visualize how big you want the jump to be so you know roughly how much snow to shovel. Take the snow from the two sides of the jump so you don't lessen the amount of snow in the run-in or landing zones. Compact the snow when the mound is big enough. Use shovels to form the shape of the ramp and walk around on it to pack down the snow. You will need to repeat the shoveling/compacting process several times.

3. Build the in-run. If the snow is powder you need to pack down that snow as well so you have a smooth transition from the in-run to the ramp. To make the in-run you need to sideslip the entire length of it. This means sliding down the length of the in-run very slowly with your board perpendicular to the fall line. With snowboards roughly four feet long, this will be a nice width. Repeat this several times or until it is smooth and firm.

4. Take a practice run. Whoever goes first off the ramp needs to do it very carefully and conservatively. Take your best guess at how much speed is needed and go for it. Relay any necessary information about the jump to your friends and make any needed changes. Continue maintaining the ramp throughout the day to keep it safe and operable.

References

• Snowboard Gang: How to Build Your Own Jump

Resources

• Read this Article in Spanish