Sacajewa may be closed for the season, but plenty of activity is brewing on Peaked before closing weekend at Grand Targhee. Danny Davis, the iconic 25-year-old pro snowboarder who took gold in the 2014 Winter X-games superpipe and 10th in Sochi, is bringing his Burton Peace Park to the slopes on the west side of the Tetons.

“For what we like, for our style, this place is perfect,” said Davis in a TVN exclusive interview.

His scouts came to the Tetons in March, looking for a place with the right amount of snow and the right feel, and after visiting Targhee then Jackson, they found that Peaked was the perfect place to compliment the next wave of major park-style riding and next season’s Burton gear.

“To be completely honest, it was because of basically snow amounts and having a resort that’s cool to do it at,” said Davis. “You can’t just do that at like a Vail resort… So, Gunny from Snow Park [Technologies] and Brian Knox from Burton came and visited here, and they were like this place is perfect!… There was a good amount of snow, the mountain is rad, the people who run it, the resort itself, are very cool, so that just made enough sense right there.”

Some of the biggest names in the sport are descending on Targhee for this exclusive marketing/media event sponsored by Burton and Mountain Dew, and after a full year that began in Aspen and crossed the Pacific to Sochi, this annual event is pushing the envelope further than it ever has been.

“I don’t even know all the distances on everything because everything is still being built,” said Davis on Tuesday. “I can say when I went up there the first day, last Friday, we talked about like 65-70 foot jump into a bunch of bank turns into a road gap, and there’s a quarter pipe, and then you decide whether to go left or right. If you go right, it goes into the top of a yeah, like 400 foot pipe into a bowl or you go left which goes into another jump which then goes into a berm that puts you back into the halfpipe … I don’t think anyone’s ever done a 22 foot bowl. So that’s going to be really interesting and fun to ride.”

Danny Davis, Scotty Lago, Jack Mitrani, Mikkel Bang, Mark McMorris, Arthur Longo, Ben and Gabe Ferguson, Alex Lopez, Charles Reid, Ulrik Badertcher, Taylor Gold, Louis Vito, Greg Bretz and Zak Hale will all be hanging out at the Teewinot Lodge throughout the weekend, going big for one final push of the pro-circuit season.

“I was even talking to Travis [Rice] the other day, he’s going to come over for a few days,” said Burton Director of Team Marketing Bryan Knox.

Come December, a 44-minute TV segment highlighting the riders, their runs and Targhee will be broadcast on major networks, yet because the event is still in the making, which participating networks are still confidential.

Snow Park Technologies began building the course on April 2, and as of Tuesday night, their four snowcats were still pushing snow into the Peace Parks largest run yet. The previous year at Squaw Valley was contained within roughly 600 to 700 feet of terrain, while Peaked boasts nearly three times that, between 1,500 and 2,000 feet of new features.

“It’s like a whole park, I don’t want to say a top to bottom run, but it is, it’s a vast area up there, last year was kind of a contained area,” said Knox.

“We have some music this year and more riders than ever, it’s such a nice end to the season for me every year,” said Davis, who still has “a couple more casual shred things” before his “Frendly” Gathering grassroots music festival he throws with Jack Mitrani in Vermont each year in June.

For now, though, it’s all about the valley. He may have missed the multiple feet of powder that was the February norm, but from Bangkok Kitchen to Barrels and Bins and his first runs at Targhee, coming from Truckee, Calif., he feels right at home in the small, mountain town.

“It’s so fun,” said Davis. “It’s great. I only rode two runs because we were up checking the course, then we rode down, but I could see on a pow day there are probably some really good hikes around here.”

However, this isn’t a competition, said Knox, although this year will have a more competitive bend with daily MVPs and an top overall rider winning secret prizes. Peace Park is about having fun and pushing the limit.

“We just want good snowboarders here that are going to snowboard all kinds of terrain. So, that’s the main thing about it,” said Knox. “Have fun, too, where it’s not a crazy contest environment. You can kind of progress your snowboarding on your own, no one’s really like judging you. … It’s just an event to come out and have a good time and good vibes and get a bunch of good snowboarders together and, you know, create a cool media project out of it.”

Take a glance at Peaked while out for Targhee’s closing weekend, because this is an event unlike any other Targhee has ever seen. Peace Park began shooting Wednesday. Triple corks will be flying over flashing cameras though Sunday, and if their confidence sparks yours, grab your skins and head up Sac to take a closer look.

“I guess we’re not trying to deter anyone. It’s just like if they want to skin up and shred down, they have their personal Instagram, I guess it is what it is,” said Knox. “But, I know ski patrol is watching for people up there, for sure.”

Once the camera’d drones settle down and the Red cameras are put away, they hope after a few bluebird days of filming, join the whole crew in celebrating their shoot and the 2013/14 season with psych-rock band The Growlers playing at the Trap at 9 p.m. on Saturday for a not-quite-so-exclusive event.

“I guess it’s an open invitation,” said Knox. “The more the merrier.”

This article appeared in the Teton Valley News on April 17, 2014.