This event gets better every year. What started off as a ploy to get Southern California residents up to Bear Mountain to buy a season pass at a "screamin' deal" has six years later turned into a highly anticipated and respected pro-jib contest that draws thousands of spectators and 50 of the worlds best rail riders.

The lollapalooza-esqe crowd herding around the sun deck (beer deck) and vendor booth city is in a class all its own. From the meat-heads to the die-hard old-schoolers, from the Magoon look-a-like's to the hormone driven teenagers flirting with each other and trying to find a signal on their cell phone. It's pure chaos. By 4pm before finals had even started, I had seen everything from kids vying to win a beenie by eating cupfuls of straight coffee beans to barely legal girls making out with each other on a bet... and that's just the legal stuff.


Todd Richards announcing from his perch overlooking the event and crowd below

The crowd's debauchery and chaos added to the energy of the event. Even though it was just a DJ spinning records, the entire afternoon felt more like rock and roll than a snowboard event. Its always good to see that many amped people show up to support snowboarding.

50 riders were invited to compete in the event. The riders in finals were whittled down from a qualifying heat and then semi-final. If a rider made it into finals they had already been shredding and hiking the course for about two hours... not including practice.

The course itself was completely unique as far as rail jams go. Besides the fact that it was long (requiring the riders to hike more than usual), it was well received by the riders. There were six features, each stationed with a judge. There was no question the judges were qualified; they were six of the worlds best jibbers LNP, JP Walker, Joe Sexton, Seth Huot, Keegan Valaika and Simon Chamberlain.


Keegan Valaika (far right) stationed at the feature he was judging during the event

Since each heat was a jam session with all the riders hiking and dropping at will, and since the course was spread out on two strips of snow like a giant horseshoe, there was always something getting thrown down. Trying to watch everything happen at once was like trying to watch a doubles match with four tennis-balls in play. As soon as you looked to watch a rider drop in on one feature a part of the crowd would erupt as someone stuck something at another feature across the way. The dialogue became a constant "Wait I missed it, what did he do?"

A couple of the features were simple, i.e. a down box and a c-rail, while the dog-house and pyramid features required more creativity from the riders. The wall ride became the crowd pleaser since the boys could huck backflips and rodeos onto it, consistently emitting screams from the kiddies, but it was the double-kink elbow rail that had the riders facing the ultimate challenge of the course.

Lacing the rail without getting bucked off was challenge enough, so when Ted Borland tailpressed through both kinks and all three doglegged sections it was a well earned "Best Trick" title. 16 year old Bear Mountain local-boy Zak Hale was neck and neck with Jed Anderson during the finals, both of them sticking tricks on each feature consistently and with style. In the end Anderson scored an inth higher than Hale for 2nd place and Hale took 3rd.


16 year old Zak Hale can buy a lot of candy with that cardboard check

Scotty Vine, another Bear Valley local, was the man to beat all day and he never backed down. Even in the finals when it was apparent all the riders were losing steam from hiking all day, Scotty was charging up and down the course- dancing on the rails, backflipping over the dog-house and combo'ing up his runs with new variations over and over again. He went home $7,000 grand richer at the end of the day.



Four hours of riding later and, despite some sunburnt drunkey monkeys lurking and snoozing on the sun-deck, the Bear Mountain wasn't about to shut 'er down yet. Just as the sun set they premiered their new movie "Parkumentary" via projector (in close vicinity to the bar) followed by the Stepchild/ThirtyTwo movie "This Video Sucks".

After that it was go-time for "The Official After Party" (Yes, it was really called "The Official After Party") at a bar a few miles out of town that doubles as a chinese restaurant. As rumor goes, the Hot Dogs and Handrails after-partys have been so reckless in the past that no bar in the actual town/village of Big Bear was willing to host this years party.

Without getting into gory details (and there was gore) lets just say that the after-party lived up to its reputation.


LNP and Gabby Maiden during "The Official Afterparty". Gabby looks scared due to the intensity of the party going on around them.



Results:

Best Trick: Ted Borland- Tailpress through the double kink

1. Scott Vine
2. Jed Anderson
3. Zak Hale
4. Jake Kuzyk
5. Ryan Tarbell

This past weekend Snowboarder Magazine held it's inventive new contest "America's Next Top Pro Model" at the summer shredding glacier on Mt. Hood, Oregon in the world acclaimed Windells snowboard park. If you missed our coverage from the first day, pop-in over here to check out some video shorts from the "High-Ollie" and "Best Jibber" contest.

Going into day two of the contest the 20 pro riders, all riding their new insignia snowboards, were tasked with three more on-snow mini-events. This time the schedule for the day started with the "Spin to Win" contest, followed by the "Biggest Air" and then capped off with the carnage-filled, crowd-pleasing "Chinese Downhill".

Rather than force your eyes to go numb by actually reading, go ahead and check out these vids we whipped together. (We're not aiming for quality here, obviously. Our apologies.)

For banger photo coverage you'll have to head over to Snowboardermag.com. It's their signature contest so they have the legit coverage in the works... we were more like the annoying friend of a friend that showed up and out of pity was allowed to hang out.

Spin to Win:



Biggest Air:



For footage from the Chinese Downhill you'll have to wait with bated breath for the official Snowboarder Magazine video edit (coming soon to a website near you). We totally missed it... but we were told that yes, indeed there was plenty of spitting, shoving and carnage. Breaking thru the finnish line first was the unstoppable Fin Lauri Heiskari, followed by American badass Bryan Fox, with another Finnish luminary, Eero Ettala, coming in third.

After shredding the hot snow all day the riders and the crowd moved down the hill to the Windells Campus where the pro's put on their philanthropist game-faces and started hawking their own pro-models to the Windells campers in a silent auction.

Each board sold to the highest bidder, and the money for all the boards was collected and given to the charity chosen by the rider who received the highest bid out of all the boards. That rider who received the highest bid out of everyone was the revered Eddie Wall, who brought in $300 bucks for his Forum pro-model. The auction pulled together a total of $1909.00 that was donated to St. Judes Hospital, Eddie's charity of choice.

With each mini contest, including the five on snow events and the silent auction, the riders stacked up points that went towards determining the overall rider who would win the title of "America's Next Top Pro Model". Throughout the weekend there was an undeniable standout. Lauri Heiskari, on his DC Snowboards XFB Pro board, won the Highest Ollie, Chinese Downhill and Biggest Air contests, and even placed third in the Spin to Win, making him the most winningest rider of the weekend and earning him the crown of America's Top Pro Model. If that's not some bragging rights for DC Snowboards and Lauri's R&D skills than we'd like to know what is.

Besides checking out all of the coverage online, be sure to pick up a copy of Snowboarder Magazine's November issue to see America's Next Top Pro Model in all it's glory with the aesthetics of print.

"Danny Kass, you are still in the running to becoming America's Next Top Pro Model."



Snowboarder Magazine was kind enough to let Grind TV check out their first ever summer contest "America's Next Top Pro Model" held at Windells Camp on Mt. Hood Oregon. Editor Pat Bridges (standing in as Snowboarding's own Tyra Banks) and the entire Snowboarder Mag crew invited a slew of top professional riders up to the glacier with one requirement: they must have a pro-model board coming out this season.



An interesting array of pro's have graced the summer riding camp with their presence this weekend. From MFM to Eddie Wall to Lauri Heiskari to Danny Kass; you've got your contest killers and you've got you're shred-porn stars - and just about every breed of rider in between.



The riders battled it out for two days, earning points during each of the five "mini contests" held up on the glacier. Be sure to head over to Snowboardermag.com to check out the full coverage.


The first contest the riders had to anti up to was a regular old ollie-off.