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Last year, on the way back from Marquette Mountain Superpark, Austin stopped at a gas station and got this ridiculously awesome tee shirt with an elephant on it. Wolf tees are going out, its all about the biggest land animal in the world now.

Summit Pro/Am finals went down on Friday. Me and Austin were in the 15 person field that qualified to compete for the big $1000 1st prize check. I did not make finals, which allowed me to take full advantage of the free PBR. Delicious. Everyone’s best friend Skier Steve Janisch won, and LINE Midwest rider, Matt Halverson picked up 3rd. Andreas White, decked in slim pants, no poles, and fat rockered skis threw down one of the most insane tricks on a down rail I have ever seen, lip 2 3 change 4 out. Wow.

Before the competition, me and Austin met up with super photographer Bill Hickey and Elan/Dalbello rider Willi Engelhart to shoot some pole bonker shenanigans which you can get a peep of at the end of the edit. The park we did it at is right by my parents house. It’s a sledding hill so there was unlimited in run and speed for what we needed to do. Perfect.

The tow rope shred madness tired us out to the extreme, so we decided to do it again the next day at Elm Creek. Elm Creek is a Three Rivers Park District park like Hyland is. Its main attraction is cross country skiing and tubing, at some point, some genius decided it would be an excellent idea to turn the above average sized sledding hill into a ski area. All the old rails from Hyland got tossed over, and a rope tow was put in. It’s possibly the most fun mini shred park, EVER. We lapped for around six hours and it never got old. Austin threw down all eight 270s onto the baby handrail and I tapped and nollied my heart out. David Wells had a credit card number he could use as much as he wanted, don’t ask, and we ordered about $45 worth of Domino’s to the chalet. It was a feast of delicious proportions.

By the way, I ditched the intro segment. I’m sure all you guys were getting sick of it too.

So, the guys down at Summit must have realized how much Wild Mountain’s King of the Hill Shop Wars sucked, especially for skiers, because they ripped the idea off pretty hard to create Crew Wars. Shop Wars let us [Team Ski Hut] take two runs as a team per round and there were absolutely NO prizes to be had for us, the winners, or swag to throw out for any of the competitors. Us skiers sat around for two hours while snowboarders lapped the course in a jam format that we definitely didn’t get. Lame.

Summit’s shop team was conspicuously absent at Shop Wars, not that they missed out on anything. Instead, they put on a Star Wars themed comp open to ski crews, snowboard crews, and even mixed crews. 15 crews were registered, and a quick number crunch told us that we’d be up against 80 or more other people.

Practice was absolutely nuts with every crew trying to get hits in before the first heat. The action was slimmed down a bit with four crews taking the backyard park at a time in 20 minute heats. We took Team Tinga’s Hats all the way to the third and final round, going up against the snowboard crew from our first round heat that qualified alongside us.

After an indecisive final, they made us hike up for a final hit to decide the winner. Basically, we could have taken one run instead of going balls out the whole night, awesome! In the spirit of X Games, someone decided to implement an even more indecisive method of judging than txt to vote. The crowd cheered and yelled in a loudness match to decide the winner, rap battle style, until we were declared the winners.

I’ve seen blood drawn over skate decks thrown out in product tosses. I thought it was pure insanity to throw out a snowboard AND a pair of skis. Needless to say, it was messy. Summit threw another great event in their backyard park, fun times and excessive amounts of RedBull were had by all.

We walked away with a big backpack full of stuff and a lightsaber that Summit reportedly spent $150 on on eBay. It makes cool noises and stuff.

Fall brings a certain anxiety for skiers. We start putting on our new outerwear to watch TV in the living room. We creep resort webcams and compulsively refresh the weather.com 10 day forecast. Everyone has their own preseason rituals. Here in the midwest, the one we all share is the wait for the temperatures to dip below that magical, almost unreachable number, 32.

This season, we were kept waiting a little longer than usual. The weather phenomenon el nino has proverbially screwed us in the ass, leaving minnesota skiers wondering if it was ever going to get cold. Mother nature at last felt a shred of pity for our time and again crapped on region. The midwest has always been forgotten. It’s always East and West, or rather West and East. Spoiled, elitist, and ungrateful west coast skiers looking down on the sad, rain sodden, east coasters that need more attention and sympathy.

Somewhere in the middle, between them, with no actual mountains to speak of, is the midwest. Here in the midwest you find a group of skiers who call two inch dusting of white fluff a blessing. All we know and live are hole in the ground excuses for ski resorts that would struggle to make an old man’s thighs burn. A season starting a month late is a slap in the face from the snow gods who already don’t care about us.

I’d rather not think about what kind of season we are in for at the moment. As of right now, we’re in a state of barely winter, and I’m content with that.