Terrain park daily inspection checklist.

A terrain park changes every week, and that is exactly why its daily inspection matters. When a guest is hurt on a feature, the first questions are what the feature looked like that morning, who checked it, and whether it should have been open. The checklist below gives your crew a consistent answer.

How to run the morning inspection

1. Inspect before the park opens, and again after grooming, new snow, a build change or a busy afternoon of use.
2. Go feature by feature, in the order a rider would meet them, so nothing is skipped.
3. Close first, fix second. A feature with a problem is closed and marked before anyone works on it.
4. Write down what was found, in plain words, with the time and the inspector's name.
5. Keep yesterday's layout and today's side by side, so a moved or new feature gets a full inspection.

The daily checklist

One sheet per park per day. Repeat the feature section for each feature, or keep it on a phone with the park map.

The park as a whole

• Entrance signs in place: the park's rules, its freestyle terrain sign, and the Park SMART messages
• Feature size signs match today's layout (small, medium, large lines)
• Boundaries and closures roped and signed; closed features clearly marked closed
• Visibility and light good enough to judge landings and takeoffs
• Snow surface after grooming: no hard ice, ruts or holes on approaches and run-outs
• Spacing between features enough to stop and to see the next one

Each jump

• Approach smooth, with enough room to set speed
• Takeoff shape and lip as built, not worn into a kicker or rutted
• Knuckle and landing soft enough, long enough and free of holes
• Run-out clear, with room to stop before the next feature

Each rail, box or jib

• Structure solid and level, not shifted overnight
• Surface smooth: no burrs, sharp edges, loose bolts or damaged caps
• Ends and supports buried or padded as built; no exposed metal at the ends
• Takeoff and landing snow built to the feature's height

Halfpipe or quarterpipe, if you have one

• Walls and transitions cut as intended, without ice or chunks
• Deck and lip clear, with the deck edge marked where riders stand

What the daily record should show

The record is the day's park, as it was. For each feature: where it was, its size, its status (open or closed), who inspected it and when, and any problem found with what was done about it. Changes during the day (a feature closed at 1 p.m. after the landing went hard) go in the same record with the time.

Keep past days as they were written. If a correction is needed, add it with a note and a name rather than changing the original. Weeks later, that record is the only reliable picture of what the park looked like.

Park SMART: the guest side

NSAA's Park SMART program, with Burton, PSIA-AASI and the National Ski Patrol, gives parks one set of messages for riders: Start small, Make a plan, Always look, Respect the features and other users, and Take it easy. Posting them at the entrance, and checking every morning that they are still there, is part of the inspection.

Mapping the park every day

Because features move, a daily map is the fastest way to know what was where. A paper sketch works; a map on a phone is easier to keep. In Verdynt/OS, the crew drops a pin for each feature from the snow (it waits for a good GPS fix), can start from yesterday's layout, and a feature that fails inspection shows as closed everywhere.

Common questions

Sources: National Ski Areas Association, Park SMART freestyle terrain safety. This guide is general information; your own operating plan, your insurer and your state's rules come first.