Walk into the new Woodward Tahoe action sports training center at Boreal Mountain Resort and you’ll nearly taste the excitement in the air. It feels as if there were a plugged-in hairdryer sitting in a bucket of water on a high roof rafter, or maybe as if an old television were soaking in a bathtub somewhere in the basement. The buzz bouncing off the walls of this massive new facility on Donner Summit is absolutely electric. But rest assured, there’s really no wiring hazard at Woodward Tahoe. This contagious energy just comes with the territory when there are seven trampolines and a tumbling floor within 50 feet of the front door.
Two years in planning and a long winter of hard work later, the 33,000-square-foot building known as the “Bunker” is now the crown jewel of the Woodward Company, which also operates Colorado’s Woodward at Copper Mountain and five other action sports training centers around the globe. The Bunker is the biggest indoor action sports facility Woodward has built yet; you can’t even imagine what’s stuffed inside of its cavernous confines until you see it with your own eyes. The place is packed wall to wall with next-level training features that allow you to practice tricks inside before taking them outside to Woodward’s snow terrain parks. The indoor/outdoor package deal amounts to the ultimate playground for action sports athletes looking to get serious about their stunts.
The Bunker’s doors swung open to the public on June 9 with a gala grand opening celebration. Pro athletes of every action sports discipline came out to show their support on opening day, including skateboarders Tony Hawk and Curren Caples, BMX riders Ryan Nyquist and Kris Fox, snowboarders Todd Richards and Chas Guldemond, and skier Tanner Hall. These heroes put on a non-stop demo, riding the park features side by side throughout the day. The public also got a chance to rip around as there were open skate, BMX, and trampoline sessions. More than a few young rippers fulfilled a dream that day as they pushed or pedalled around the street course trading runs with legends like Hawk and Nyquist.
The praise for Woodward Tahoe and the opportunities it will provide for action sports athletes young and old was unanimous at the grand opening.
“This is definitely the best training facility I’ve ever seen in my life,” said Hall. “Between the Super Tramp, the mega ramp into the foam pit, and the on-snow, there really isn’t anything like this anywhere else. There’s Woodward Copper, but that’s Colorado. This is California. Everybody knows the Cali vibe. To me, this place is like heaven.”
Todd Richards, a world champion snowboarder turned contest announcer for NBC, spoke jealously of the benefits of growing up near the new facility.
“I didn’t have foam pits,” said Richards at the grand opening. “Where I grew up, you were lucky if you had a single ramp within a half hour of your house, and it was probably terrible. Here, kids can learn something on one transition and then they have 60 other transitions to take it to, plus the foam pits. Everything here is built for progressing.“
The ramps, trampolines, and foam pits that Hall and Richards both mentioned are all crossover training features that allow athletes of different disciplines to train on the same equipment. One of these training tools is the Super Tramp, a high-powered trampoline that throws jumpers up to three times higher than a standard trampoline. The Super Tramp is ideal for practicing advanced aerial tricks that require a lot of air time. Woodward Tahoe’s Super Tramp is one of the first ever in the United States.
Several of the other unique features inside the Bunker are a cement skate/BMX park, a tumbling floor, a wooden pump track, a bouldering wall, and a big air jump with multiple take-offs that hucks jumpers into a huge foam pit. The big air ramp is designed to be used by anything with wheels, including special park skis and snowboards. Park boards are Woodward-patented wheeled skis or snowboards that allow riders to train on hard surfaced ramps and concrete skateparks. The Bunker is the first facility built specifically for their use.
The designer and lead builder of these ground-breaking Woodward Tahoe features is Nate Wessel, a former BMX pro rider who now specializes in building ramps and training centers for Woodward. At the grand opening, Wessel spoke about his drive to make the facility at Boreal cutting edge.
“Building [Woodward Tahoe], we tried to go the extra step on every level to make the facility light years ahead,” said Wessel. “It’s really tough because you’re designing and building things that have never been built before. We made it happen because we want to keep pushing the limits of everything. That’s what Woodward is all about.”
The Bunker opened for business the day after the grand opening with the start of the first camp session on July 10. Woodward Tahoe will offer nine weeks of youth camp for kids ages 7 to 20 this summer, including training programs in freeskiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX, cheerleading, and digital media production. Instruction during the camp sessions is provided by both resident Woodward coaches and top professionals such as skier Hall, who came in as a guest coach for the first session. The first four camp sessions were snowsports focused as Woodward maintained a fully featured snow terrain park through the first week of July. The last month of camp sessions offer dry-land instruction in skiing and snowboarding plus skateboarding, BMX, and cheerleading. Campers may also choose to capture the action rather than perform by learning photo and video production in a digital media program.
All the programs are available as either day or overnight camps with residential campers housed at the Boreal Inn.
With the facility nearly dialed and the initial programs up and running, the next hurdle for Woodward Tahoe has been to fill up the camps. The first four camp sessions averaged about 40 kids with about 10 percent of those enrolled coming from Nevada/Placer County, said Woodward Tahoe Marketing Director Jon Slaughter. These first four sessions were the most expensive of the summer, however, as the on-snow camps cost $1,499/1,799 (day/overnight). In comparison, the next four dry-land camp sessions are $699/999.
“Our prices are competitive, if not lower than similar action sports camps, especially when you consider the savings in travel costs compared to a camp out-of-state,” said Slaughter. “Year one we wanted to come out of the gate at the lower end of the price range to show we were committed to giving parents a good value.”
Woodward Tahoe also has a three-tiered scholarship program that parents may apply for based on financial need. North Tahoe locals luck out as well, with a sweet deal going for students enrolled in the Truckee Tahoe Unified School District. The TTUSD package includes a week of dry-land day camp and a Bunker pass for $600. When the camps end on Aug. 17, the Bunker pass will be the new ticket to train at Woodward. The facility will then open to the public for daily drop-in sessions until April 14. Bunker pass holders will be allowed to train for two-plus hours a day between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. The Bunker pass costs $279 and is available to anyone ages 7 and up. You can also train in the Bunker one day at a time by taking a basic training course for $49. Subsequent Bunker sessions after this introductory course will cost only $29.
Whether you’re a kid, have kids, or still act like a kid, the opportunity to train at such a world-class facility just might be what it takes to forge a future in action sports. The training features at Woodward Tahoe not only provide a practice space, they provide a safe place to progress and learn new tricks. Because as we’ve seen so many times before, Olympic dreams may be founded in skill and talent, but they are only fulfilled if you can stay healthy. Which is where the foam pits come in handy.
Tony Hawk is coming back to Woodward! Catch Hawk and the Birdhouse Skateboards team at a pro skate demo on July 18. For more information visit woodwardtahoe.com. Comment on this story below.
