Snowboarding highlights: Apex Mountain Resort

At last Apex has set aside some terrain specifically for snowboarding. The Apex Mountain Dew Boardercross Terrain Park is now officially open for business, and business is thriving. Area crewmembers have turned the Claim Jumper trail into a terrain park replete with tabletops, spines, hips, and quarterpipes. Situated at the mountain's lower half, the park offers 750 feet of challenging fall-line riding and is accessible from the T-bar at the hill's base. The T-bar climbs up the Okanagan run, where the halfpipe is rebuilt each year. The Apex crew starts in the early season by blowing artificial snow onto Okanagan, giving them a solid base on which to sculpt a burly 300-foot halfpipe with a pipe grinder similar to the Bombardier. Okanagan is also equipped with lights on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights. Terrain park and halfpipe aside, the most popular runs for one-plankers are the unnamed runs in the trees off the Quick Draw quad chair. The terrain is steep, the snow is deep, and the trees are tight. In a nutshell, it's free-riding nirvana.