EVERGREEN — Often described as the jewel of Evergreen, Evergreen Lake will have a chance to shine Saturday when the Evergreen Park and Recreation District kicks off its inaugural Winter Festival.
District executive director Scott Robson said he hopes the family festival — with events scheduled day and night — will become a regular winter highlight for residents and visitors. Robson said any “modest” profits would be rolled back into district programming and projects.
Planning started in November, said executive assistant Anne Marie Edwards.
“We have a lot of details to work on,” she said.
Edwards is looking for volunteers to step up Tuesday through Saturday for everything from snow-sculpture box stomping to start-gate managers at the rail-jam event. (Inspired by skateboarding, a rail jam features snowboarders riding on surfaces other than snow, including, in this case, metal rails.)
Events include skating and snowboarding, with a variety of competitive events. Some fees apply, but daytime events are free.
Robson said the overall concept borrows from traditional winter carnivals held in the Midwest and Canada, especially the ones that include ice mountain-bike racing, another scheduled event.
Although Evergreen’s festival will be on a much smaller scale, Robson said, “The concept was to some degree to build off the success of the Big Air competition.”
Denver Big Air was held in January 2011 and drew international ski and snowboarding competitors.
Robson said he hoped to avoid competing with other events in the metro and mountain area. He also wants to pull interest from participants at shows occurring before Evergreen’s, such as the Winter X Games in Aspen and the SnowSports Industries America trade show in Denver. Both events were held this past weekend.
