The Chosen Tour concluded with a bang at the seventh and final stop on Mammoth Mountain last Saturday. The event was the biggest to date because the stakes were so high. The winner of this stop would earn a trip to Austria to shred and film with the Nike team. The event was filled with progressive riding on Mammoth's massive set-up. Eric Meyers was on location to break down all the action:
There are very few things a snowboarder enjoys more than fun features and partying. And those are precisely what Nike Chosen brought to slopes all over the world this winter.
The North American tour hit a handful of resorts, including the handrail hall of fame that is Salt Lake City and the final destination at Mammoth Mountain over the weekend.
Since the night's champion would be jetting over to Austria to take on the winners of the European tour-- held largely on jumps-- the stop at Mammoth started with a session on Main Park's famous bottom jump. The heats kicked off in the afternoon, with a little weather blowing in. But that didn't stop the more than fifty competitors from putting on a show that was far beyond what anyone expected from an "amateur" contest.
The funny thing about the jump session at Mammoth is that it seemed like the majority of the field had a double cork to work with-- not something you can even say about many professional contests. With that many doubles and four-digit spins, the crowd that came to Mammoth to kick off the holiday weekend was thoroughly entertained. In the end, Jeremy Page won best trick for his frontside double cork 1080.
When the jumping ended, the party on the sundeck really kicked off, as people gathered to watch the riders on the custom rail garden created by the Mammoth Unbound park staff. The same field of well-rounded riders easily made the switch to the rails.
The closeout rail caught a few who weren't on top of their technical game. But the giant down box next to it provided an easy warm-up to the heaviest obstacle-- a 30-foot down-lift tower with no room for errors or early-offs. Rounding out the course were back-to-back stair sets, which were close enough to force riders to carefully plan out the landing of their first trick in order to set themselves up for the next stair set, after which riders had to close out their run on the quarterpipe-framed wallride below.
Head to SnowboarderMag.com for the rest of the recap and check out all the photos here.
