BEND – If there is an elite snowboarding contest scheduled somewhere in the United States, chances are Pat Malendoski will receive a phone call.
Officials of the event will ask the Bend resident to design and build the perfect halfpipe or the perfect slope style arena.
They call Malendoski because he’s the best: lauded by top snowboarders in media interviews, and featured in nearly every snowboarding magazine.
But Malendoski’s work is a far cry from the glamorized culture that snowboarding has become in recent years. During the winter, he often lives like a vampire, shaping the halfpipe and the slope style arena late at night, so the facilities are in perfect condition for competition the next morning. At the U.S. Snowboard Grand Prix at Mount Bachelor recently, he pulled two all-nighters.
“Basically, in the winter I’m just run ragged,” Malendoski said. “I’ll spend 10 days to two weeks somewhere getting things ready and then performing all the operational duties while we’re there. We basically design and build everything. Sometimes what should be a 10-hour day turns into an 18-hour day.”
Malendoski’s business, Planet Snow Design, provides a service for resorts that host major snowboarding events. The company builds and designs halfpipes and slope style arenas for all three stops of the Grand Prix, and also the Snowboarding World Cup and U.S. Open.
Malendoski was just in Vail, Colo., at a slope style event called The Session, and is now in Mountain Creek, N.J., for the season’s final Grand Prix.
Planet Snow Design usually uses the host resort’s equipment. For example, at Mount Bachelor, Malendoski used the 18-foot Zaugg pipe monster machine attached to two Camoplast Snowcat groomers to cut the halfpipe. He used the Snowcat, with a blade and tiller, to shape the jumps and rail positions of the slope style arena.
A surfer in Virginia Beach, Va., where he grew up, Malendoski, 38, moved to Bend in 1992 specifically to snowboard.
As he rode Mount Bachelor for a few years, he realized he wanted “a fun park to ride.” He began shaping a terrain park for Mount Bachelor in the 1996-97 season, then took his skills to Mount Hood, where he built features for High Cascade Snowboard Camp.
Malendoski’s business took off from there. In 2002, the Salt Lake City Olympic Committee hired him to build and design the halfpipe for the Winter Games.
He will not, however, be taking his work to Turin, Italy, for the Winter Olympics.
“This year it’s a European thing,” Malendoski said. “I didn’t really throw my hat in the ring. Usually most of my work just comes to me. I’ve already got enough stuff to do.”
Malendoski said that his experience as a snowboarder helps when designing features. But working with snow is never easy, because it’s so unpredictable and so inconsistent.
“I’m a snowboarder and I can ride at a level where I can understand what’s going on,” he said. “So I can take a look at something and see where it needs to be different.
“You’re basically working with an imperfect tool. When you’re dealing with snowpack, it’s not like you’re working with steel or something. It’s a super-dynamic craft, because every day something is different, and you have to make it something that the elite guys can progress their riding on.”
In the halfpipe, Malendoski’s skills are crucial to provide a “consistent and connectable” riding surface for the athletes. He said the level of riding will drop dramatically as soon as competitors can no longer predict what the surface of the halfpipe will be like.
“Suddenly they’ll go from 15 feet of air to eight feet of air,” Malendoski explained, “because their confidence is shot if things aren’t predictable. They know when it’s right and they know when it’s wrong. You either get the pat on the back or you don’t.”
Malendoski said he is in a Snowcat at least 10 months out of the year at an event somewhere. He’s even taken his snow-shaping skills to Japan, where he deals with communication issues and completely different machinery.
“But riders show up and they expect you to provide the same product,” he said. “Every mountain has a different set of circumstances where you have to get the ingredients to come out right again, under a timeline. That’s the hardest part.”