Settled in between the Missisippi River and the St. Croix River afton alps is a fun little place to hit up on the weekends with friends or make the journey out there on the weekdays. I met a lot of new people last summer and thought it would be a good idea to get a season pass to Afton Alps so i did and i just remember them having a perfect rail and a perfect flat box setup on opening day and when it was time to leave i still wasnt done yet. Afton has a really cool park director named Matt Taylor. I'll be out there after school and he and a couple guys will be building a new jump or putting in a new rail or box so i can always talk to him and tell him what needs to be fixed in the park and he usually gets right on it. Now unlike Buck Hill afton has been making bigger and bigger features. They have a really nice Handrail a huge up flat down box and huge flat down box. All of those are located on the Carol's Crib run which would be considered the "expert park" at afton.

On the Back of the land there are two other small parks with features such as a 20 foot flat bar, down flat down box, a frame rail, mailbox, barnyard box, and up flat rail. that place is really fun because you can hit two different parks in one run and there is a chalet at the top of that so you can hit that up really easily. Afton is trying to get the expert park to be sponsored by some companies who will pay afton to make some park features and put there logos on it. awhile back i heard they had an idea for a cool wallride setup and a cool handrail setup so hopefully that will work out for this winter. Afton does a really good job of making new parks all the time and having different runs lined up for everything. i have noticed on here that people put "powder days" on there little forum thing but see in minnesota we dont have powder days we have days that it snows a couple of inches. The snow that we get at the hills around here are made pretty much all by machine and then sometimes it snows a little bit as well.

They have a lot of cool contests that are thrown throughout the winter and they have a pretty big contest called the Next Snow Search which is a contest that eventually goes onto television and stuff. Watch out for 12th stones competition series coming to Afton Alps this winter. This is going to be the 12th stone team putting on there own contest by the riders for the riders!

Well no Minnesota doesnt have 10,000 foot veritcals or anything like that but we have a few small runs with some cool rails and very few jumps, the snow is ice the lights run till 10 oclock and everybody is out having a good time shredding with there friends. that pretty much sums up midwest snowboarding at its finest. P.S.- if you go to afton they make you pay for your tickets at the front of the resort so if you and your buddies are going out there somebody hop in the trunk and get in for free cuz they dont check for lift tickets. you didnt hear me say that.