Lake Effect Park

Senior Henry Stachnik grinds on the rails at Lake Effect Park. “I’m going to be honest, my brother put in most of the work and yeah, shout out to him for that,” H. Stachnik said.

  This winter, instead of hitting jumps or grinding rails at a ski mountain, the Stachniks have been doing them in their backyard. The “Lake Effect” park is fully decked out with homemade rails, snow jumps, and even a working tow rope. The two brothers, Henry and Walter, have shown that with hard work and dedication, they could accomplish their goal.

  The park wasn’t built overnight, it’s progressed over a period of time, but it’s at its peak currently.

  “We slowly built it over the past couple of years, but the recent addition of the tow rope probably took about a month,” senior H. Stachnik said.

  This new tow rope definitely makes it easier for the skiers to get back up the hill, instead of having to get back up by themselves.

  “This year we kind of mainly built all the rails and we built the tow rope. The tow rope was a long process because it took a while to get all the parts and there weren’t very many directions about how to build it,” freshman W. Stachnik said.

  Having a couple jumps in your yard is probably normal for most skiers, but having a full on park is next level. You have to have a lot of determination and inspiration to go through with the process.

  “I guess we’ve always grown up skiing and just wanted to have a spot in the backyard to be able to do that,” said H.Stachnik.

  The park also brings in friends of the brothers, letting them have a ski park they can go to for no cost.

  “It’s fun because it’s free and it’s really easy to do.  I thought it was cool that Walter did it all with his brother and his dad,” freshman Jack Plummer said.

  That scale of park is sure to attract some attention. The park’s Instagram page has around 350 followers and features skiers doing cool tricks in the park. Friends and family were shocked when they saw the finished product.

  “There were a lot of surprised faces. I definitely got some calls from some friends who saw it, and yeah, it was a surprise for them,” H. Stachnik said.

  The park gives them a sense of pride because they built it themselves.

  “It feels cool because I know all my hard work has gone into the features. We’ve learned how to overcome hard parts and challenges while building it,” W. Stachnik said.

  One of the main things that makes the park special are all the features. These could include the tow rope, snowmaker and all the cool rails and jumps that the skiers could do jumps and tricks on. But it seems like one takes first place for the favorite rail.

  “My favorite feature is probably the battleship because it’s a challenging rail,” W.Stachnik said.

  “I like the battleship. It’s really fun to hit,” Plummer said.

  “I’d say my favorite feature has to be the battleship,” H. Stachnik said.

  When looking towards the future, the brothers hope to increase the quality of material. This could make the features more sustainable and last longer so they could be used for many more years to come.

  “Hopefully we’ll look towards getting some metal features and moving away from the PVC at some point. But right now I’m pretty happy with where it’s at,” H. Stachnik said.

  If you want to see the brothers and friends use the ski park, just check out Lake Effect Park on Instagram. As the season progresses, the Stachniks will continue to grind away on their backyard ski park this winter.

  “I’ve learned to just kind of toss around different ideas and work together to kind of put both of our hopes and dreams into one finished project. If you just think about it and make a plan, you can put a lot of things together in spaces that you never thought would work,” H. Stachnik said.