Washington, DC – When snowboarding’s super stars like Shaun White, Louie Vito and Mark McMorris perform insane freestyle tricks in the halfpipe, it’s a soaring, exploding sight to behold. One crew is responsible for designing and building these progressive snow sport venues that allow them to take flight. Chris “Gunny” Gunnarson and his team at Snow Park Technologies (SPT) build some of the most innovative projects on snow.
“Mountain Movers,” National Geographic Channel’s new television series that premieres tomorrow, goes behind the scenes to show viewers how these world-class, high-intensity snow competition courses are constructed. Starting Thursday at 8 p.m. ET/PT, viewers will watch crews battle winter weather, avalanches, heavy machinery and big personalities that present constant challenges.
Gunny is the creator and owner of SPT and a highly respected name in the snow sports industry. At a young age, he became interested in the infrastructure necessary to fuel his snow sport passion and was fascinated with the concept of moving tons of snow to create winter works of art. In the 16 years since SPT was born, Gunnarson and his crew have designed and built more than 250 competition courses, including all of the Winter X Games in the United States and Europe, the Burton U.S. Open and the Winter Dew Tour.
Working in remote locations under extreme conditions, Mountain Movers profiles the SPT crew’s every move, from battling with avalanche control to building a halfpipe in blizzard conditions. In the show’s first episode, “Stairway to Hell,” SPT will be designing halfpipe and slopestyle courses that will include the massive Mountain Dew signature staircase and rail feature, containing the biggest wall they’ve ever built. Undoubtedly, with a feature of this size, problems arise. Because of the feature’s size and weight, it’s going to be extremely expensive to ship, and they must come up with a new design. Gunny decides to have Aaron Dettling, his carpenter, build the stairs on the mountain out of wood. Not only will they have to push to build a course in a unique fashion, but they also will have to contend with equipment failures, weather delays and the sheer size of the wall and rail features.
Additional episodes in coming weeks will include construction of an Olympic training camp including a massive 65-foot jump at Sun Valley, Idaho, for elite Red Bull athletes, and the ESPN X Games course in Aspen, Colo.
Mountain Movers is produced by executive producers Jason Carbone and Sarah Kane of Good Clean Fun for the National Geographic Channel. More information is available online at channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/mountain-movers.