In a weekend packed with movie premieres and beer festivals, the fine folks over at Keystone delivered up stoke in a completely different fashion—by hosting a summertime rail jam. In a scene more reminiscent of a lazy spring day than a blazing summer one, throngs of anxious shredders were on hand to get their jib on. Over 170 showed up at 9:00 a.m. to register for the event.
[Photo by Tucker Burton / Keystone Resort]
Kids showed up in mid-winter gear—rocking goggles and bandanas. Quite the scene when juxtaposed against the bright yellow aspen trees, DH mountain bikers and khaki shorts-wearing hikers. But why not rock your new kit? This was the first taste of winter, even if it was served up on a few thousand pounds of snowcone ice (yes actually that kind) and topped off with some good old fashioned ice shavings from a near by ice arena.
The rail set up had a high sketch factor. Not because of a half assed set up, rather because the rails were straight up advanced and the landing zone required you to shut ‘er down immediately or ollie over the hay bails into rocks and grass (this happened more than a few times). The feature was built on a staircase with flat/down rails on either side and a big ol’ cannon bar in the middle. It was an advanced feature beautifully situated at the bottom of a grassy ski run. And if you didn’t have confidence in your ability to grease the rail and stick your landing, your day was going to be either very short or very long.
The competitors brought their A-game to say the least. 450 outs quickly became the bar in the early rounds to have hopes of making the finals. When the finals did come around, switch ups and transfers became the name of the game—all while this was the first jib anyone had hit in months. While everyone had a great time, Keystone did have some prizes to give away, so winners had to be chosen; the result are listed below.
Results:
Women’s Ski
1st Brooke Potter
2nd Katrina Siegfried
Men’s Ski
1st James Campbell
2nd Jaron Stadler
Best Crash
Chris Tulien
In the end, the true credit goes out to the Keystone park staff. They most definitely proved that with enough time and effort, anything is possible. The park crew put in a hell of a lot effort to host a rail jam that lasted all day in the peak heat of Keystone’s late summer. Kudos to that crew and thanks to everyone at Keystone for delving up a ton (literally) of winter stoke in September.
