On Saturday November 16th, there were not one, but two events that were just too good to pass up. The Love Games and Back to the Grind Rail Jam. After a late Friday night, I woke early on Saturday morning to pickup a good friend and photographer Ryan Bregante who just drove to town from Utah. We arrived at Loveland Pass around 9am and watched and waited as more and more people came out to share the love of snowboarding on some incredible natural features that separate teams had come up and built days prior to the event.

The event kicked off around 10am and the energy level was high. People wasted no time dropping their heaviest tricks on a variety of features including log jibs, pole jams, a man made jump, and even a staircase with a wooden railing to jump on. Things were hectic. People were dropping from all over, spraying snow, drinking beer, and having an all around great time. This is the type of event that snowboarding was made for. I was pleased to have put down a few solid tricks on each feature and be the first girl to hit the wooden staircase feature. It was pretty intense to say the least, but having grown up in Montana (where there were no terrain parks) I felt right at home on these natural features. After two 45 minute jam sessions, I was happy with my performance and really grateful to be named the top woman at the event.

Photo credit: Ryan Bregante

After a quick award ceremony in the parking lot, it was back in the car and over to Keystone for their annual Back to the Grind Rail Jam event. Since moving to Colorado Keystone has felt like my home and I am always happy to attend events there. We showed up around 3pm, just in time to get a coffee and put my boots back on to qualify for finals. I put down a few tricks and made the final cut, and was pretty impressed with my performance considering my lack of sleep the night before and hiking at the Love Games all day. I had a couple hours between qualifiers and finals, so I did everything I could to stay warm and awake. The snow started to fall very heavily by the time finals came around but it was time to put the game face back on and finish this day on a strong note. I stomped a few different tricks and was pretty pleased, but decided to go for a crowd pleasing gap to the down rail on the Y rail feature.  In the end I walked away with first. I am very happy and grateful to have started my season on such a positive note and I think I had the most fun of anyone that whole day Big thanks to everyone who put all that hard work in to the Love Games and Keystone/Keystone A51 for their spectacular rail setup as always.

Here are some photos from the events & some shots taken over the last few days :

Photo Credit: Cassie Connor

Photo Credit: Ryan Bregante

Photo Credit: Ryan Bregante

Photo Credit: Ryan Bregante