Chapman Hill, Durango’s Ski Mountain

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My name is Nolan Stowers and I was born

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and raised here in Durango, Colorado.

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I’m the program director for

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the Durango Winter Sports

Club freestyle team.

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We’re here at Chapman Hill

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which has been one of our training grounds

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for the past 20 years here in Durango.

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Chapman Hill is awesome for the public.

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Technically it’s a city park.

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Yeah, It’s a very inexpensive

place to learn how to ski

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and we have a great freestyle program

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and the race training program

here at night and yeah

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some night skiing on weekdays from two

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until seven and then

weekends from 11 till five.

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Yeah, we’ve been fortunate

enough to have snowmaking

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for the last couple of

years in Chapman Hill

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and it’s given us an

opportunity to build some pretty

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good looking mogul courses

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and have good race

training ground and stuff.

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It’s a lot different than training at

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a normal mountain just due to, you know

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the access, how close it is to the town.

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It’s a lot easier for,

you know, our athletes

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on the ski team to come over

for two hours to Chapman Hill

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than it is for them to

go to Purgatory all day.

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It’s an awesome opportunity

for kids to come

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and ski after school and

kind of get out of the house.

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I’ve been skiing here 20 years now and

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yeah, I remember back when

we didn’t have snowmaking

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and we’d have powder days in town

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and snow days would get called and

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my parents would shuttle us up

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to the top of the hill in their cars

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and they’d drop us off for

powder laps and yeah, it’s

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it’s pretty cool to see

how much the mountain

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and the Hill here has changed

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and how much support

the community gives it.

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You know

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I think we kind of get the

full spectrum of skiers.

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We’ve got, looks like three-year-olds

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out there learning for their first time.

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And then you’ve got guys

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out there who are trying

to crush some GS turns

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before they go to work,

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or go to their restaurant

jobs kind of thing

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For the price of a hundred

dollars lift ticket.

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You’re not going to find a

cheaper place to learn how to

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ski. So.

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