After the groundbreaking session that went down on the West Coast Session signature feature on Wednesday, May 7, the closing day of WCS8 on Thursday, May 8 was mellow in comparison.

A light rain fell throughout the day up at Timberline, so the few riders who chose to head to the hill (at WCS we try to ski every day, regardless of conditions), stuck with hiking rail features or finding fun rhythm tracks through the trees. Others chose to stay at our accommodations host Windells Camp for the day and enjoy Windells indoor skate, trampoline and foam-pit facility lovingly referred to as B.O.B.

On Thursday evening, the eighth annual West Coast Session concluded  with the WCS Closing Ceremonies, which included rider awards and judging for the BUFF® Session Showdown: Photo Edition, a photo contest among five invited photographers. Jamie Walter, Rocky Maloney, Gill Montgomery, Evan Lai-Hipp and Hunter Baar all threw their hats into the ring, submitting photos in five different categories. The winning photos from the BUFF® Session Showdown: Photo Edition will be released next week on westcoastsession.com.

Riders’ Awards:

WCS8 Closing Ceremonies concluded with the Riders’ Awards, seven different honors for standout individuals from the Session: Rookie, Repeat Offender, King Meat, All Day Syndrome, Best Trick, MVP, and the Worm.

In town-hall style, skiers voiced their nominations for each award and voted by cheering for their favorites. The wooden trophies, hand-made by WCS partner Treefort Lifestyles, were presented by last year’s award winners to their successors in 2014.

In the Rookie category, last year’s winner Niklas Eriksson handed the trophy to Alex Hackel, who stormed WCS8 with an impressive showing on all of the shoots, landing his first triple flip becoming at the same time the second person to land a triple cork 1080.

The Repeat Offender award goes to the best performance by a returning WCS rider. In a tight vote, Tosh Peters narrowly edged out fellow WCS vet Tim Gage for the honors. The award was presented by 2013 Repeat Offender Ben Moxham.

For those who send it deep with little regard for their health, the King Meat award serves to honor their courage. Last year’s King Meat Jamie Crane-Mauzy presented the trophy to the unanimous winner Max Morello, whose naked double backflip during the sunset session (see video below) was undoubtedly one of the ballsiest tricks ever performed at a West Coast Session.

West Coast Session 2014: Day Three

In the category of All Day Syndrome—he who goes hard all day, every day—Alex Beaulieu-Marchand presented the award to Karl Fostvedt, who was a dominant force on every feature throughout the week.

The award for Best Trick, also presented by ABM, went to McRae Williams, who stomped a flawless switch triple cork 1440 during the sunset shoot. His triple narrowly edged out Hackel’s triple 10, Torin Yater-Wallace’s double flatspin 12, and Karl Fostvedt’s blind 360 switch-up on the “S-DFD” rail for the win.

The West Coast Session’s biggest honor is the M.V.P. award for the week’s most valuable player. Between guinea-pigging the big jump, throwing down hard in the park, and going absolutely huge on the signature feature with giant doubles and triples, Jeremy Pancras made his mark on this year’s WCS and was voted by his peers as the MVP of WCS8. The award was presented by last year’s MVP Steve Stepp.