LOVE Park will be recreated in snow at Bear Creek Mountain Saturday

As a teen growing up in Collegeville, Aidan Bulwicz used to drive to Philly three or four times a week to go skateboarding at LOVE Park. And when winter weather kept him off of his skateboard, Bulwicz picked up snowboarding at Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Macungie.

Now the head builder and park groomer at Bear Creek, Bulwicz, 24, will marry his love of skateboarding and snowboarding when he re-creates LOVE Park out of snow at the resort this weekend.

And don’t worry, Bulwicz is modeling his version after the cool, old LOVE Park — which was once a haven for skateboarders in Philly (though skateboarding was banned there in the ‘90s) — not the renovated, boring, new one.

“That one’s a little plain Jane,” he said.

Bulwicz’s replica won’t have the LOVE statue or a fountain, and he’s keeping some details under wraps that he’s pretty excited about.

“I want people to see it the day-of to truly get the full effect of surprise,” he said. “I don’t think they’re quite going to expect what they’re going to see.”

Snowboarders will be able to perform tricks on the steps, rails, and ramps of Bear Creek’s LOVE Park, which will open at noon Saturday and remain on site through Sunday.

Bulwicz said he was inspired to replicate LOVE Park in snow after he created some popular terrain features at Bear Creek last year that are usually only found out West, and began reminiscing about his days skateboarding in Philly with his friend Mark Gama.

The project is part of a one-day event at Bear Creek called JahRailZ!, which focuses on the health benefits of snowboarding and includes a nonperishable food drive. Gama, the founder of the apparel line JahFeelZ, is one of the event’s organizers.

Bulwicz said he used a computer-aided design program to create a scaled drawing of LOVE Park. On Wednesday night, he and a team of 10 Bear Creek employees started building the terrain by creating a large pile of snow, which they will then chisel down.

“Think of it like a marble statute. It starts out as a block of marble and you have to sculpt whatever you’re making,” he said. “I have to slowly take away the snow in a careful manner. Often times, we’ll incorporate chain saws to get cleaner edges, and fine-tune it with snow rakes and all.”

While warm weather hasn’t allowed Bear Creek to make as much snow as it would like this year, Bulwicz said it won’t affect his project.

“Since we’ve opened, I’ve been keeping stockpiles of snow in certain locations just for this,” he said.

Bulwicz, who last skateboarded at LOVE Park the week before it underwent renovations in 2016, said his biggest hope for his replica is that it does the same thing the original LOVE Park did — unite people from across the area.

“It’s always nice seeing people come together from different mountains,” he said. “One of my favorite things about this job is making people’s day with whatever I make in the snow.”

Admission to JahRailZ! and the snow-cool version of LOVE Park, both of which open at noon Saturday, are included with a lift ticket to Bear Creek. Daily weekend lift tickets are $57 for adults and $48 for kids and seniors.