Palatine snowboarder creates his own backyard park

It might not be the halfpipe Olympic gold medalist Shaun White dominated in Vancouver, but a small snowboarder's haven can be found in this flatter neck of the woods.

For the past five winters, 19-year-old Palatine resident Joe Robertson has built a snowboard terrain park in his parents' backyard. Among the jumps, rails and quarter pipes is an 18-feet-tall mega ramp modeled after a similar structure at the Summer X Games.

"You can pretty much find me out there everyday," Robertson said.

The snow can't come soon enough for the Harper College student, so he and his friends turn to artificial means in order to ride.

Robertson contacts the West Meadows Ice Arena in Rolling Meadows as early as October. Staff leaves ice shavings collected by the Zamboni outside, and he loads the pile into his friend's landscaping truck.

He also taps into the snow piles scattered across an adjacent industrial park.

But the big contributor - aside from Mother Nature - is a snow maker he and his buddies engineered that's capable of pumping out 20,000 pounds of powder over a couple of days.

"The first thing most people ask when they come over is, 'What's your water bill?'" said Robertson, who's been snowboarding for 12 years.

Surprisingly, he said blanketing the park with man-made snow adds only $30 and $50 extra to the water and electric bills, respectively.

Robertson couldn't estimate how much he spent building the park. He cobbled it together, using scaffolding and various materials he's collected including Trex, a brand of composite recyclable products. He likes using metal, but finding an affordable welder can be difficult.

Competitive snowboarder Paul Buck said he's never seen another backyard snow park on the magnitude of Robertson's. It's a nice change of pace for Buck, who said the closest parks are in Algonquin and Naperville.

"The whole thing's unreal," Buck, of Palatine, said. "It's clear how much time and work he puts into it."

Friends will have to find a new place to ride next winter since Robertson is moving to Colorado to go to school in a couple of months.

Check out a video of the park at youtube.com/watch?v=tqT4MGNApKA.