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