After an unprecedented 16 consecutive halfpipe victories, Kelly Clark's win-streak was derailed Saturday at the Burton US Open in Stratton, VT.

The Vermont-native and crowd favorite boosted a run filled with lofty, technical tricks, but this time her efforts were just not enough.

Elena Hight, who has only placed in the top three on two occasions throughout this season, boosted a run that included a huge, tweaked backside air, back to back 900's and a massive ally-oop backside rodeo. The judges awarded her a 86.50 which was only 3/10th of a point higher than Clark's.

Hight was overwhelmed with her win and said "I'm really happy with the whole weekend - the pipe and weather were amazing. I haven't been at the Open for a couple of years, and it's great to come back and embrace the 30th anniversary of the event."

Following the dramatic women's event, sixteen of the world's best male riders battled it out under blue skies and springlike temps. The warm weather created variable conditions in the pipe. The right wall was sun-baked and slushy, but the shadowed left-side was icy and firm, making it difficult for the riders to cleanly stomp all three of their runs.

After taking a three year hiatus from competing at the US Open, Shaun White made a triumphant return to the pipe. He was the first rider to drop and laid down a run that included a method, frontside double cork 1080 stalefish, Cab double cork 1080 melon, frontside inverted 540 stalefish, backside double McTwist 1260 and an alley oop backside rodeo. While this wasn't the best run we've ever seen out of White, his efforts were awarded a 90.1-- the highest score of the day.

White was pleased with the win, but knew he didn't ride his best. He commented "I hoped to set it up in runs two and three, but I had trouble with the double back rodeo on that final hit."

After falling on runs one and two, Louie Vito stomped four double corks in his third attempt. This was enough to secure second place. Vermont-native Benji Farrow rounded out the top three and was thrilled with his first major podium of the season.

The Burton US Open was the last major halfpipe contest in the United States. Many of the riders will now travel to Tignes, France for the European X Games to cap off the 2011-2012 season.

The Burton US Open will celebrate its big 3-0 this week in Stratton, Vermont.

This historic snowboard contest is guaranteed to be filled with loads of progressive shredding from the world's best slope and pipe riders. Shaun White, Kelly Clark, I-Pod, and Eric Willett are just a few of the top riders slated to compete, which means there'll be plenty of heavy action throughout the weekend. Slopestyle Finals will go down on Friday, and Pipe Finals will steal the show Saturday.

No 30th Anniversary would be complete without a party, so Burton stepped up their evening entertainment in a major way. Things kick off Friday with the first annual "Washed Up Cup." Past Open winners will face off in a no-holds-barred race down the mountain. With $750 and life-long bragging rights all on the line, things are bound to get messy, in the most entertaining way.

Then the Super Mash Bros, a DJ duo known for their mash-ups, will take to the stage and rock the one's and two's for the Burton x Mountain Dew Party.

On Saturday night, Method Man and Redman headline the "30th Love" party sponsored by Nokia. These hip-hop legends' enthusiastic stage presence and lyrical fury are sure to stoke out the crowd for the closing night celebration.

The 30th Anniversary of the Burton US Open will be nothing short of monumental. If you can't make it to Stratton, VT for all the action, tune into Redbull.TV for the live webcasts. You're not going to want to miss any of it.

Burton US Open Live Webcast Schedule

Slopestyle Finals, Friday, March 9 09:15 am (EST)
Halfpipe Finals, Saturday, March 10 09:15 am (EST)
Night Jam, Saturday, March 10 06:45 pm (EST)

"There's been a lot of events around the world from past to present, but I think the US Open has stood the test of time. I'm super stoked to hear that they are going into their 30th year. That's really cool." - Terry Kidwell, US Open Champion,1988

Snowboarding's longest running event, the Burton US Open, will celebrate its 30th Anniversary this week in Stratton, Vermont on March 7th-10th.

For three decades, the Open has been the most revered event in snowboarding. Every top international rider has at one point competed in the legendary contest and many--if not all-- continue to show their support. Over the years, the Burton-owned event has seen more than its share of shenanigans, both in the form of progressive riding and crazy partying.

Stories from past Open's exhibit the true roots of snowboarding, and chronicle how the once humble sport has turned into the worldwide phenomenon that it is today.

Vice Magazine uncovers a bit of the lore of the Open through interviews with past winners and participants, including Jake Burton, Terry Kidwell, and others in this episode of US Open Turns "Dirty 30."



Tune into the live webcast of the Burton US Open at Redbull.tv from March 7-10.

All Photos: Tom Zikas

With the conclusion of the contest season forthcoming, we wondered what it's like to be one of the minds behind the decisions that can potentially make or break a pro's snowboarding career. How does one become a snowboard judge? What in the world is it like to hold this position?

With questions like these looming in our head, we went to straight Guillaume 'Giom' Morisset for his take on his current position as a competitive snowboard judge.

Giom's a veteran to the scene and judges all of the major independent snowboard comps like the X Games, Dew Tours and Burton/TTR Opens.

We caught up with Giom between events to find out about his past as a pro and what it's like to be one of the top judges in the snowboard world.

Where are you from and how did you get into snowboarding?

Being a French Canadian 'Quebecerster,' I got into snowboarding a little later than when the craze was already happening in California. I probably first heard of snowboarding in 1992 and that's when I started. I was 12 years old or maybe 13.

When did you turn pro?

After about 6 years of trying to tweak some, learning different ways to spin and experiencing multiple bindings adjustments, I finally started flipping. That brought me into winning my first international event which was a halfpipe World Cup at a local resort in Quebec.

From there, I would say my pro career started. I had some minor sponsors and traveled a lot on the competition tour.

I never won that many contests, but I would always get at least two good wins a year. This included the US Open in halfpipe, the Vans Triple Crown in slopestyle, and the Toyota-Nippon Open Big Air in Japan.

Then, I met cool guys like David Benedek and Travis Parker and got a part in the last installment of the Robot Food movie- Afterlame. Fun, but definitely wish I had the opportunity now, as I would put much more energy into the project.

What were your favorite memories while pro?

I had many good memories and great experiences from my days as a pro, but hey- to be honest, it's even better now as a judge. I mean, I still get to travel to all those amazing places for snowboarding and I still have responsibilities, but I don't have to be focused on performing at top of the game and don't have to take all those crazy risks anymore!

Haha...it was fun, but now I'm way happier to ride easy because the tricks the pros pull nowadays are nasty, double upside down stuff on huge jumps, in conditions that aren't always best. There are some serious consequences if you're not focused on your game.

The tricks that all these guys do now are incredible.

How did you transition from being a pro into being a judge?

The way I got into judging is as simple as my ex-girlfriend having the idea, and so I did it.

I started at local events in Quebec and then quickly expanded to international events since I had good connections in the industry.

Now I pretty much judge all independent contests. I judge the TTR Burton Opens, Air and Style, Arctic Challenge, Dew Tours, X Games, both in Aspen and Europe and whatever else is going down.

Do you have preference between judging Halfpipe or Slopestyle?

These are different events with different style. They are all interesting and everyone tries to do the best with our sport and make it look good. Depending on weather conditions, sometimes we get the best event ever with new rad tricks, sometimes its just another contest.

What are the key elements you look for in Halfpipe and Slopestyle contests?

I always enjoy seeing someone showing original, raw snowboarding, whether it's in pipe, rail or slope. Expression session! Style is my favorite.

What do you think about Halfpipe as an Olympic Sport?

Now that our sport is in Olympics, I can actually watch the games on TV. I don't think that I would be truly interested in watching the Olympics without it. I guess that it's good for that reason, plus it gets all the riders excited about being recognized worldwide by random people that don't know anything about snowboarding.

Slopestyle is very close to becoming an Olympic sport as well- The decision should be made late in May. What are you thoughts about that?

As far as Slopestyle in the Olympics, yeah why not. It means I'll watch an hour more of TV and it might be actually exciting to watch.

I think that snowboarding still has much more expansion. I wish jumps would get more fun. I mean, when I started riding, it would be tabletops. Now, it's mostly step down cheese wedges.

I'm not a fan of those.

First, I don't know what speed I need because the landings is hidden behind the cheese wedge, secondly, it doesn't give a fun feeling of shooting up there and thirdly, there is bigger impact on the landings, which makes it more difficult to land tricks.

With these jumps, it is pretty impressive to see where kids have taken our sport. Freestyle aerial skiers do triples with spins and they are so focused and on point with those.

While us snowboarders do more random tricks- We still do triples with flips, but they are unique and have style. It's impressive!

Do you have plans to continue judges, riding or both?

As for me, I'm just gonna keep slashing pow or slushy snow, flip weird and tweak into smooth landings. And actually maybe double cork something into pow! That's what I like to do. That's what it's all about for me... and ya, I'll be judging too.

Giom recently got a taste of the other side of the contest scene once again and came out on top at Dustin Craven's Fun Pipe Contest at WSSF.

Check out his winning run from Monster's The Show 4: