Under the expectant gaze of a few thousand spectators surrounding the Minnesota State Capitol, Grace Warner straps her bindings tight. Here at the Red Bull Heavy Metal street competition, a palpable pressure to perform weighs upon the riders, and that’s atop the event’s already formidable features. Grace drops in on a ribbon of snow leading to a waist-high down-flat-down handrail spanning more than 40 consequential concrete stairs. She locks into a frontside 5050, navigates the kinks cleanly and rides away smiling. The capaciously caffeinated crowd roars in response. Yet despite stomping her trick and successfully stepping to the challenge of sessioning with some of snowboarding’s most talented maestros of metal, Grace quickly downplays her accomplishment. Sarcastically, she says something to the extent of, “Cool! Another 5050 on the down-flat-down at Heavy Metal.”

The Midwest has the sickest scene ever. It’s like a skate scene; the towrope makes the ski hill a skatepark.

Grace, one of street snowboarding’s blossoming stars herself, hit the same trick on a similarly massive rail one year prior. That was at Red Bull Heavy Metal in Detroit, an event held roughly 50 miles southeast from where she grew up in Milford, MI. Spectators went wild then, too—as they should. Making it to the end of such a street rail is something that only a small percentage of snowboarders will ever accomplish. Factor in doing so with proper style, within a limited number of tries, in front of a hoard of anticipative onlookers, and that high level of difficulty exponentially increases. Still, the 23-year-old’s self-deprecating comment in Minnesota suggests that this season she held even higher expectations for herself.

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