Mammoth in the spring is freakin’ sweet. Especially if you’re missing school to be there, like the 9 finalist in the Salomon Jib Academy. For those of you not familiar with the Salomon Jib Academy, let me take a second to fill you in. It was a winter-long program consisting of multiple tour stops across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and even Japan. At each stop a few members of the Salomon squad descended on a local hill and joined the kids for a day of skiing, autograph signing and just generally getting stoked on our sport. At each stop a winner was chosen, and given a trip to Mammoth to take part in the finals. One might compare the concept to everybody’s favorite reality show American Idol, or perhaps even America’s Next Top Model, which I spent a better part of yesterday watching a marathon of in the hotel yesterday. Should April have won? Probably. But what do I know about models?

So now we are in Mammoth with the nine Jib Academy finalists, age 12 – 16, from all across the world. They will be spending next five days skiing with their favorite Salomon pros including Mike Douglas, Sammy Carlson, Simon Dumont, Mike Clark, Jenn Hudak, Mark Abma, Charles Gagnier, Kaya Turski and everybody’s favorite sleeveless skier Peter Olenick. Technically, this is a competition for the young finalists. The winner (chosen by the Salomon team) will get a grand in travel budget for next year. However, there is zero emphasis on competing. Everybody’s goal is simply to make as many laps as they can in The Unbound terain park, and have as much fun as possible in the California sunshine. A few of the activities on tap for the week include sunset photo shoots, a bowling party, sessions at Mammoth’s amazing cement skatepark and averting your eyes as Peter O walks to the hot tub in his Speedo (you think I’m joking, but I’m not). It should be a hell of week.