By Lindsay Fraka

The Analog Design an Unlikely Feature contest went down this Saturday at Big Bear and let me tell you, it was out of this world...hah...okay, that was cheesy as hell but there is officially a space ship located at Big Bear for the season. Austin Blair won the "design a feature" aspect of the contest with his creative and "unlikely" idea of creating a jib that resembled a UFO. He was slaying that thing all day, which is to be expected...it's pretty much his own personal jib. For the most part though, everyone that rode in the contest was partial to the jib line set up on the right side of the Scene. Since it was a "jam" layout, the riders could hit any feature as many times as they wanted in the allotted time but they also had to hike their butts up to the top to do so. I saw a lot of blood, sweat, and beer up there. There were two down rails at the top, followed by a choice of an up rail or an up box. On the down slope of the two up jibs, there was a massive wall ride that kids were airing over, tail tapping, spinning off of, and pretty much FLYING over. Last, were two quarter pipes that looked ridiculously fun. We saw a lot of stalling on those that seemed to make time stand still they were pressing for so long. Devin Allen, a Big Bear local, took home the win in the end. He was attacking every feature on the hill and had a huge bag of tricks. His neon orange pants probably helped him out a little bit.

The contest overall had a pretty mellow vibe but the riding was balls out and full of creativity. Check the album for tons of photos of the event.

Results
Groms
1st Lenny Mazzotti
2nd Brandon Davis
3rd Jaromie Nolan

Women
1st Amy Mayer
2nd Jenna Klein
3rd Hailey Langland

Mens
1st Devin Allen
2nd Donkey (still working on his real name)
3rd Ian Sam

Big ups to Analog and Bear Mountain for putting on the event!

The day has arrived kids. Analog's Design Unlikely Features Contest will be going down at Bear Mountain this Saturday, January 9th. The winning feature has been unveiled as a spaceship shaped jib and will be in the Scene park for the contest which means you can comfortably camp out on the sun deck and catch some of the riding. For those of you less lazy folk who want a chance to get some free Analog gear and to be one of the first to hit this innovative new feature, get your jibtastic butts up there to registration at 8am (it's open to the public! yay!) Stay tuned to GrindTV for a wrap up of the event later on.

I've wanted to say these words for quite sometime so, here it goes...snowboarding season is finally and actually here. Not only are all the Southern California mountain resorts open (Mammoth, Big Bear and Mt. High) but Colorado and Oregon are getting dumped on, Lake Tahoe resorts are slowly starting up their chair lifts, and the weather is finally cooling down. Mother Nature might actually be hearing our prayers for winter to get here early.

Arbor set the scene for the kick off of winter at their headquarters in Venice Beach Friday night where they hosted the Los Angeles premiere of Bear Mountain's video, "Parkumentary" and Think Thank's film, "Cool Story". I'm pretty sure that half of the people there had already seen one of these films at previous premieres (I had seen both in Big Bear at Hot Dawgs and Hand Rails) however, that didn't restrain anyone from going to experience them again and showing their support. A few blocks from the ocean, the Arbor Headquarters is an amazing venue for events such as this. Hell, it's a sweet place just to go stop by to say what's up on any day. They have surfboards and snowboards lining the walls and an upstairs loft. It's a perfect place for fellow snowboarding fiends stuck in LA to get together and celebrate the season.

Following the premieres, Arbor team rider Pat Milbery, led a raffle with giveaways of prizes including an Arbor snowboard, Flux bindings, street apparel, and lift tickets to Bear Mountain and Snow Summit. If you weren't there on Friday to win or to see the films, they did it all over again the following night. Needless to say, all the companies that got together for this event really did a good job. Everyone was happy, mellow, and even though it was on Friday the 13th, no one showed up with a hockey mask or a knife. I'd say that makes a good night.

I talked with Bear Mountain's Brad Farmer and he gave me the low down on what's going on up in Big Bear. They've been blowing snow on Upper Park Run and Expressway hoping to get more of the hill open as soon as possible. As of now, Central Park Run is still the only accessible run. To keep up with their progress, hit up www.bearmountain.com. Tickets are still only $25 bucks for adults and $20 bucks for young adults.

Brad overseeing the raffle from the corner...

To live vicariously through us here at GrindTV, be sure to check out the video recap of the event at Arbor.

It seemed fitting for the theme of the Los Angeles premiere of Think Thank's Cool Story and Bear Mountain's Parkumentary to be related with Jason, Friday the 13th, horror movies, slashers, etc.; being that it happens to be over a weekend of Friday the 13th. However, the only slashing that will be seen at the Arbor Headquarters in Venice, CA will be that of snow slashing, gaper slashing, and maybe some beer slashing...sloshing...whatever.

Arbor will be hosting this two night movie premiere starting at 8pm on November 13, 2009. Live music, free beer, giveaways, snowboard movies, and the beach a few steps away.

This is a private party so they ask you to RSVP to INFO@ARBORCOLLECTIVE.com.

Apparently, I am VIP so I will be there, check back in with GrindTV for the scoop on how this party goes down.

This past weekend, I joined the masses in heading up to Mt. High and Big Bear to finally get some snow shredding out of my system. Both resorts opened up their lifts to the public on Friday October 30th, the earliest in the season that I've ever been able to ride. So, two resorts in three days...I'm ridiculously sore. I need to start doing some squats or something.


First, let's talk Mt. High. Mt. High was impressively open from top to bottom. It was kind of weird that the whole chair ride up to the top we were mostly looking at dirt but what's that matter as long you have some snow to get to the bottom, right? They had jibs and features the whole way down, from flat boxes to roller coaster boxes, double barrel down rails, C-boxes, and even switched it up with some boxes placed as the take off for a jump. It was a good, long, fun run. It was so good that the recently eliminated Tiny Dancer aka Louie Vito himself decided to show up with his Dancing with The Stars partner, Chelsie Hightower. Guess it was time for him to show her the ropes for a change. Pretty much everyone had a goofy grin on their face, obviously stoked to finally be riding some snow in Southern California.

However...let me say that it was about 75 degrees out, seriously making me wonder how the hell I thought that it was a good idea to run thermals underneath my pants. I contemplated joining the group of little snow bunnies that were running around in their tank tops and push up bras it was so damn hot. Let me set the record straight, I'm not complaining. I know the majority of people would kill to have such weather in November but, c'mon now, snowboarding in that heat was just weird to me.

So on Sunday I was prepared for the scorching sun. I cruised up to Big Bear with a few friends sans jacket, goggles, and thermals. Bear only had Chair Five running this weekend. Still, the shortness of the run did not take away from the amount of fun that was taking place. I took a few laps with some of the guys from Knife Show Inc. including Mike Benson (who will be editing and filming for Bear's video this season) and the main face of their films, Casey Wrightsman. They were already shredding and filming, trying to get all the footage they could. And why wouldn't they? They had about half a dozen features set up including some flat boxes, a down barrel, a wall ride, a C box, and a flat-down box. It was easy to get a ton of laps in this park with the lift line moving pretty quickly and chair five not being too long of a lift. It was definitely still insanely warm but every one had their sunglasses on, their zinc rubbed in, and their flannels flapping in the wind.

Even though every muscle in my body is aching and it takes me a minute to sit down and get from point A to point B, it's just a reminder that I was actually riding this weekend. Hopefully the snow will start dumping and the temperatures will start dropping so that So Cal's favorite resorts can open up the rest of their slopes! Keep praying for snow!

For proof that this all actually went down, check out the photo album!