Top skiers and snowboarders, both local and pro, gathered today at Alpine Meadows for the Trains event presented by High Fives Foundation. Trains is an annual event that is a unique slopestyle format where riders compete in an individual event in the morning and in the afternoon, split up into teams to compete for various prizes such as Best High 5, Best Train, Best Male, Best Female and Best Trick. At the end of the day, $3000 in prize money. Hundreds of people came out to watch the event, eat chicken wings made by Volkl’s Jamie Lavalle and lounge in the sun. Riders and spectators alike couldn’t have asked for a better day.
Chris Logan with a rodeo 9 Photo: Brian Walker
Kicking off the morning was a rider meeting, lead by High Fives founder, Roy Tuscany. Roy suffered a life altering spinal injury in 2006 while training in Mammoth. After being paralyzed, he had to relearn how to walk again. Thanks to his positive attitude and support from everyone around, in 2008, Roy went skiing. His mission now is to raise awareness and money for athletes who have life altering injuries, and help them get back to doing what they love. High Fives and Trains event is all about positivity and giving tons of high 5s!
Purple Team teaching a clinic on the sickest grabs Photo: Brian Walker
Invited athletes consisted of 20 skier men, 4 skier women and 6 snowboarders, and they were split into teams based on where they were from. The setup was the best it’s ever been, and riders were pumped. Tons of high 5s, mini trains and sick tricks went down. At the end of the contest, nearly every competitor dropped for the two jumps one after another. This train of about 30 riders had the crowd going wild.
Parker White with a zero spin tail
Judging the event were Jen Hudak, Julian Carr, Timmy Dutton, Ralph Backstrom, Tim Russell, Landon McGauley and Andy Spotts. In the end, it was a local team who walked away with both Best Train and Best High 5. This was the only team to hit the C.R. Johnson special rail feature presented by Smith. For their high five, Peter Kukesh got on one of the barrels, while Davis Souza and Sean Collin front flip high 5’ed him. Sean Collin also walked away with a sponsorship from Discrete Headwear for a quad spread. No surprise here: Parker White, walked away with Best Male, and Grete Eliassen, Best Female. Snowboarder, Brandon Reis, won best trick by stomping a Front-side double cork 1080 to the bottom of the landing. Not only did they get to pick a charitable foundation to donate to, they also walked away with trophies and a boatload of prizes from all the sponsors. All around, the vibe was incredible, and everyone seemed to have a blast.
Nick Goepper Photo: Brian Walker
Best Male:
Parker White
$500 donation to Vermont Adaptive – www.vermontadaptive.org
Best Women:
Grete Eliassen
$500 donation to NRP Foundation
Best Trick:
Brandon Reis – front-side double 1080 to the flats (snowboarder)
$500 donation to skiDUCK – https://www.skiduck.org/
Best Train:
Grey Team
Sean Collin, Davis Souza, Austin Simonpietre, Peter Kukesh and Andy McDowell
$500 donation to Shane McConkey Foundation – https://shanemcconkey.org/foundation/
Best High Five:
Grey Team
Sean Collins, Davis Souza, Austin Simonpietre, Peter Kukesh and Andy McDowell
$500 donation to Alpine Meadows Foundation
Parker White – Best Male and Grete Eliassen – Best Female
Best Train and Best High Five – Andy McDowell, Peter Kukesh, Austin Simonpietre, Sean Collin, Davis Souza (L to R)
One of the best trains of the day by the Red Team
To find out more about High Fives or make a donation, go to highfivesfoundation.org
