RIGHT, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Big Snow mascot, a Yeti called, you guessed it, Big, interacts with kids in the mall. The large glass windows partitioning American Dream from Big Snow let shoppers and their families watch skiers and snowboarders while they sip Starbucks in flip-flops. The entrance to Big Snow at American Dream, located in a mezzanine above the main pavil-ion of the mall. The front of the snow park is a store complete with winter sporting goods and clothing, luring in shoppers making the rounds in commercial suburbia. A kid crashes into the boundary while learning how to ski. For many customers, Big Snow is their first experience on snow and a launching pad into the sport. TOP TO BOTTOM Big skier, tiny skis at the bottom of Big Snow. Although this guy brought his skis (and style), many people rent every-thing from skis to helmets at the center’s conveyor-belt-like rental shop. Coordinated fashion for an afternoon on the indoor slope. These two stood out among a sea of rented blue-and-red Big Snow jackets. “On a [regular] slope there’s thousands of people and you maybe get a glimpse of a person once a day, maybe twice,” she explains. “At Big Snow, you get to see what people are all about, watch the process of learning or working on a trick. It makes you feel like a regular.” For an increasing number of Tri-State residents, skiing isn’t just a vacation activ-ity, it’s part of their day. Morning parent meetups while kids are in class, a few runs after the market closes, affinity groups for skiers in the most diverse cities on the planet—it’s all made skiing into a lifestyle sport without stripping patrons of their everyday lifestyles. “Maybe you just come on Thursdays,” McCausland says. McCausland thinks the low bar of entry and the ski hill’s unusual locale have had an effect on even the casual mall strollers, people who, she says, “had never thought to go skiing before, but while sipping a cup of coffee behind the glass window, thought it looked kind of fun.” One guy said he’d never actually seen skiing before, and that he’d be back with his kids. “Yes, it is absurd, but maybe one needs the other,” McCausland says. “This mall and its inability to consider the absurd, they were crazy enough to think there was a market for this and it turns out there really is a market for an indoor ski center.” 068 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 16, Issue 3: Page 68
