Main Image: Aaron Kiser.

Module: gallery_album
Item: 2015 Open Season Rail Jam
Displays the photo gallery for a selected Gallery Album.The sun was hiding, but the Stevens Pass faithful are a hardy bunch. They rode through the rain, soft landings giving reason to send at Steven Pass Mountain Resort’s “Open Season Rail Jam” this past Saturday.

What started out as a relaxed gathering of friends riding soggy resort rails and boxes quickly turned into a blitzkrieg of backslide lipslides and miller flips. Soon after that, the hardway spins and switch tricks started to appear. And once the first flip was thrown, inverted pandemonium ensued.

Keala Cole, at only 13-years-old, swept the am division by banging out tricks that would have held up against the pros, carrying speed through backside 360s off the cannon tube, chucking a one-foot miller flip over the hitching post. The women’s division was absolutely dominated by Naima Antolin, who was in a league of her own, quite literally—all the other females competed in the am division. Steven’s Pass regular Jack McColl took home third place for the men’s pro division, while Max Djenohan landed himself in second by blasting a burly backflip to box in the middle of the course. Jake Aaronson proved to want it the most, though—he told me he was really in need of new gloves, so I guess that was his incentive. Jake, a Massachusetts-native and former student of the Waterville Valley Ski & Snowboard Academy, is a recent PNW transplant. He praised the park staff, and said that with so many different features the course allowed for riders to really flow. This provided for a lot of great hits, and in turn more fun.

As the jam came to an end, the rain didn’t. But everyone kept riding, ripping park laps til sunset, soaked and still smiling.

Thanks to Jules and the Stevens Pass crew for putting on the Open Season Rail Jam, and especially to the park staff for creating and maintaining such an awesome course despite the rainy weather. Even in low-tide conditions, the Pacific Northwest snowboard scene stays strong, making do with what we’ve got until Old Man Winter decides to reappear and fill in the lines atop Cowboy Ridge.