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Summer Fun at the Boreal All Terrain Park

Boreal has always been a leader when it comes to new sports. They were one of the first in the Tahoe region to cater to the snowboarding crowd. Mountainboards or all-terrain boards (AKA dirtboards) is the newest board sport one the block. These vehicles have large wheels, skateboard like trucks, and solid padded foot straps. This is a pretty new sport and so the equipment is evolving quickly as these young companies and new ones bring their ideas to the public.

Ripping grom; Russ Baker

When we visited Boreal on a summer weekday, there were only a few board riders out enjoying the winding rolling all-terrain course. There were also only a few boards in their rental fleet and there was only one with the crucial bushings that make turning easier. Boreal set up our test riders with pads and helmets. They probably should also provide gloves because there was plenty of hand dragging going on by our mountainboard novices. I had some work gloves in my truck which they shared and everyone survived generally uninjured.

I asked the marketing person if she had tried to ride these things and she indicated that it was too rough for her. I also passed on my chance to ride to let our younger and more agile test riders check it out. I have tried some mountainboarding last summer and found it fun but I had to choose easy slopes were the speed would not get too high. Even though the course winded back and forth across the fall-line of the bunny slope, everyone except the ripping grom had to bail several times on most every run. Our top test rider, Shaun Pursel is a super athlete and he had the board with truck bushings that helped him make it down the whole course and olley the rollers on his last run. They also allow BMX bikes to ride their summer fun park but we did not see any that day.