The DC Mountain Lab was a private snowboard park in Park City, Utah

Park City, Utah

Park City is a town in Summit and Wasatch counties in the U.S. state of Utah. It is considered to be part of the Wasatch Back. The city is southeast of downtown Salt Lake City and from Salt Lake City's east edge of Sugar House along Interstate 80. The population was 7,558 at the 2010 census...

, known as a research and development center. As of 2011, the property is being put up for sale. The property is taken up mostly by the snowboard park, but there is also a house there. It was owned and operated by DC

DC Shoes

DC Shoes is an American company that specializes in footwear for extreme sports, skateboarding, snowboarding as well as snowboards, shirts, jeans, hats, and jackets.The company was founded in 1993 by Ken Block and Damon Way, and is based in Vista, California...

 president and co founder Ken Block. The 22 acres (89,030.9 m²) are home to kickers, boxes,butters and rails galore. The Lab has its own snowcat for building jumps and grooming the park. It also has 8 snowmobiles and a handful of dirt bikes. The Mountain Lab was the location of the snowboard video MTN. Lab and MTN. Lab 1.5. It also serves as a second home for DC co-owner and founder Ken Block and his family.

The Mountain Lab features many possible activities. The snowboard park that composes the front yard is the main feature, but house guests can also try their hand at skeet shooting, ping-pong, DJing, and playing video games on the custom Mountain Lab Xbox, and admiring Ken Block’s vintage snowboard collection. The collection features snowboards from all eras of snowboarding, spanning from the very start to the present cutting-edge boards. The snowboarders don’t have to ride only park if they don’t want to, they can take some of the snowmobiles into the backcountry and ride powder, or ride powder in the parts of the Mountain Lab that haven’t been, or can’t be, groomed.

As of 2008, as part of an agreement with the Ranches at The Preserve homeowners association, where the property is located, all man made obstacles, birms, rails, and other obstacles have been removed, and the property has been mostly returned to its previous condition before the building of the park. All that remains is the single rope tow.

Features

The Mountain Lab has many custom-made features that were made specifically for the Mountain Lab by Chris “Gunny” Gunnarson and the Snow Park team, a renowned team of snowboard park designers. Signature features include a box that runs through the living room of the house, a wallride at the end of the run, a staircase complete with handrails, a large pink disarmed missile, and two road gaps set up in a line. More traditional features include a down rail, a down flat down rail, a large C rail, a hollow trailer that houses a jump, various flat boxes, a tabletop jump, and a hip transfer.

Location

The Mountain Lab is located in The Ranches @ the Preserve, a private gated community in the Wasatch mountains, near Park City, Utah. The annual snowfall is 355 inches (skiparkcity.net).

Visiting Possibilities

As the property is being sold, visiting the mountain Lab is only for guests of Ken Block, until it is sold.

The Video: MTN. Lab

MTN. Lab was filmed on location primarily in Park City, Utah, at the DC Mountain Lab, during the winter of 2005. Other locations that were filmed at are Park City ski resort, Twin Bridges, California, at Northstar-at-Tahoe ski resort, Colorado at Breckenridge ski resort, and Mammoth Lakes, California

Mammoth Lakes, California

-History:The European history of Mammoth Lakes started in 1877, when four prospectors staked a claim on Mineral Hill, south of the current town, along Old Mammoth Road. In 1878, the Mammoth Mining Company was organized to mine Mineral Hill, which caused a gold rush. By the end of 1878, 1500 people...

, at Mammoth Mountain ski resort. It features the riding of Travis Parker

Travis Parker

Travis Parker is a professional snowboarder. Originally from Jonestown, Texas, his sponsors have included Capita Super, K2 Snowboards, DC Boots, Airblaster, Union Bindings, Level, Lifetime, and Bluebird. In 2005, Parker started riding for Capita, having left longtime sponsor K2...

, Simon Chamberlain, Eddie Wall, Travis Rice

Travis Rice

Travis Rice is an American professional snowboarder. He is #13 on Snowboarder magazine’s list of the Top Twenty Most Influential Riders, He has been considered "the Paul Revere" of the big mountain freestyle movement....

, DC's co-founder Ken Block, Renee Renee, Priscilla Levac

Priscilla Levac

Priscilla Levac, is a Canadian professional snowboarder based out of Whistler, British Columbia.-Career:After growing up in a small town outside of Quebec, Priscilla moved to the resort area of Whistler-Blackcomb to snowboard...

, Bjorn Leines, Todd Richards, Devun Walsh, Drew Fuller

Drew Fuller

Drew Fuller is an American actor and former male model. He is best known for his portrayal of Chris Halliwell in the television series Charmed and for playing soldier Trevor LeBlanc on Lifetime's Army Wives.-Early life:Fuller was born in Atherton, California and grew up in Newport Beach; he has a...

, Chad Otterstrom, and Jake Welch. DC sponsors all riders except for Renee Renee and Chad Otterstrom, but Jake Welch and Drew Fuller are DC amateurs. The video features songs performed by Frou Frou, The Faint

The Faint

The Faint is an American indie rock band. Formed in Omaha, Nebraska, the band consists of Todd Fink, Jacob Thiele, Dapose, Joel Petersen and Clark Baechle. The Faint was originally known as Norman Bailer and included Conor Oberst...

, The Soundtrack of Our Lives

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

The Soundtrack of Our Lives, alternatively known as T.S.O.O.L. or Soundtrack, is a Swedish rock band that formed in 1995 after the dissolution of the punk band Union Carbide Productions....

, Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, The Wannadies

The Wannadies

The Wannadies were an alternative rock band formed in 1988 in Skellefteå, northern Sweden. The band's initial line-up featured Pär Wiksten , Christina Bergmark , Stefan Schönfeldt and his younger brother Fredrik Schönfeldt with Gunnar Karlsson and Björn Malmquist .Early influences...

, American Analog Set, Big Country

Big Country

Big Country are a Scottish rock band formed in Dunfermline, Fife in 1981. They were most popular in the early to mid-1980s, but they still release material for a cult following...

, Del tha Funkee Homosapien

Del tha Funkee Homosapien

Teren Delvon Jones , better known as Del the Funky Homosapien or Del tha Funkee Homosapien, is an American MC.-Early life and beginnings: 1990-1997:...

, Chemical Brothers, Renee Renee, Metric

Metric (band)

Metric is a Canadian indie rock and New Wave band founded in 1998 in Toronto. The band has also at various times been based in Montreal, London, New York City and Los Angeles...

, and Technotronic

Technotronic

Technotronic is a Belgian studio-based music project formed in 1988 by Jo Bogaert , who had already made his musical mark in the beginning of the 1980s as a part of a cover band and as a solo artist under various New Beat projects, including The Acts of Madmen and Nux Nemo...

.

The movie "DC Mtn Lab" was filmed, directed and edited by Pierre Wikberg. Wikberg previously made three movies with the collective known as "Robot Food".

Travis Parker

Highlights range from backside 180's onto rails all the way to a backside double cork 1080

Todd Richards

Highlights from Todd’s section include multiple 540s on the road gaps, frontside 360 disaster on a wall ride feature, and a method grab. Todd also rides Travis Parker as a snowboard down the Adult Swim park at Park City later describing it on Myspace as "sweet flex pattern."

Bjorn Leines

Highlights in Bjorn’s section include a 360 on a stepdown in the backcountry, a method grab, and a frontslide on the large C-rail.

Devun Walsh

Highlights from Devun’s section include a very-slow-motion 180 tail grab and a switch frontside 360. Devun's segment is shorter than most due to his speciality in snowboarding is backcountry jumps and riding through powder.

Travis Rice

Highlights from Travis’ section include a tailpress or (5-0 grind in skateboarding) to nollie frontflip on the box going through the house, a 180 stall to 180 out on the wallride, and a whole line on the double road gap, hip transfer, and the wall ride. He did a switch frontside 540 on the first road gap, a method grab on the second road gap, a crail grab on the hip transfer, and a 180 stall to 180 out on the wallride.

Road Trips

Highlights include Travis Parker in Montana hitting jumps through trees and performing his signature fully extended backflips, Todd Richards fooling around in Breckenridge's park, Justin Benne doing a 50-50 nollie out performed on a rainbow rail in which the nollie at the very top cleared the rest of the rail, Travis riding a set of tabletops and stepdowns at Northstar at Tahoe, and Todd Richards and Travis Parker riding tandem in the halfpipe in colorful full-body snowsuits deemed "ray-ray suits" in reference to artist Renee Renee. The segment finishes at Mammoth Mountain. Simon Chamberlain is shown hitting lines of rail features as well as doing a shifty tail butter to shoulder roll, switch 360 over a rope, and spinning a 720 off the side of a kicker. Team riders tail bonk a tree root in a large train with Eddie Wall leading with a mega-phone in hand. Travis Parker does a straight air over a tabletop only to tail butter down the landing. Eddie Wall is featured absorbing the kicker of the same tabletop doing a switch 180 to the deck and popping off the knuckle doing a BS 540.

Simon Chamberlain

Simon Chamberlain has an outstanding section in Mountain Lab, in terms of technical ability and visible ease in the performing of the said tricks. The opening shots of his section are possibly the highlights of his section. He does a nosepress to tail-tap out, a 360 nosepress, a 180 to nosepress to 180 out, a boardslide to 270 out, and a noseslide in which he 180’s and lands in a tailslide back on the box. He does all these tricks on a single flat box. He also does a fronside tailslide to 270 out on the stair feature and a frontside tailslide to switch backside tailslide on a long flat bar. The segment finishes with Simon talking about and going out to a rail jam, where Eddie Walls segment begins.

Eddie Wall

Eddie's part opens with him winning a rail contest and going back to the Mtn. Lab. He starts off with an assorment of 180 and 270 spins in and out on a dismantled missile. He then does a backside 270, switch frontside 270, and a backside 270 to 270 out on the stair feature. He brings the 270 in and out onto the dragon box and also does a switch frontside tailslide (and kind of turns to a nose press) to 270 out and a switch nose press and frontside boardslide. He is then featured with Renee Renee hitting the shoulder kink tree jib. Eddie then closes the segment and film with him walking out of the house and strapping into his board to ride down the "obstacle course." Eddie's run is him nose pressing up a bench, bs 180 in and out on a table, skeet shooting, fs 270 onto a table, roller over a snowmobile, rides through the snowmobile tailer to fronside boardslide to fakie out on the other side, switch frontside lipslide, rides through two hoops, frontside boardslide, switch fs 270 onto the dragon box, nose bonks a small rainbow rail, and slides into the Afterbang express.

Sources

All information regarding the Mountain Lab was taken from the video MTN. Lab, and from http://www.skiparkcity.net.
and http://www.arkademag.com/en/categoryblog/278-rip-dc-mountain-lab.html