The annual Quiksilver Down Low shred contest was held at Mt. St. Louis Moonstone last Sunday, officially closing out the season on a high note. Seven years ago the event started off as an end of year ‘down low' session in conjunction with local shop, Tropical North. More recently Quiksilver adopted it and partnered up with Mt. St. Louis Moonstone to give local snowboarders one last hoorah before the resort closes for the season. The contest was a measly $40 to enter, which included a lift ticket, and every penny went into the prize purse for the top riders on four different features along with the best overall rider of the day.

Greg Goulter oversees sales and marketing for Quiksilver in Ontario and was the driving force behind this year's event. "This has gone from a couple guys hiking the park years ago, to now, where it's much bigger," explained Greg. "It used to be invite-only but now we've made it open to anyone to help generate more money for the riders. Now there are a lot of kids showing a lot of interest. We're trying to get as many kids out to have as much fun as possible. It's really about creating a really fun day so we can give back to the riders." 75 riders showed up to test their mettle against the 4 features that Goulter and park designer Craig Burley put together. They were looking to design and build fun, new features specifically for the event. "We make it bigger, fun and free. We want kids to be stoked so we make it a big party." On top of everything, anyone that shows up, competitor or not, gets a free barbeque lunch along with a DJ and live band to listen too while taking in all the action.

Things kicked off with the close out rail. Levi Mckee, noseblunt to fs 270 out.

Joel Dalacker, on his way to taking $400.

Things kicked off on a close out rail. It was a 30' rail with a 10-foot drop on the right side and a closeout blocking the left; competitors that didn't make the end of the rail found themselves between a rock and a hard place to say the least. The abnormally cold weather made for bulletproof conditions but that didn't keep Joel Dalacker from stepping up to a front blunt to 450 off, just nudging out Matt Bujok's 270 to front board 270 out, to claim the $400 up for grabs. Joel was especially excited to ride this feature, "The closeout was pretty sick. I've never rode one before so it's super fun to have a feature like this in a public park. You don't come across something like this everyday." Dave Amos, local legend who now works as a designer at SBC, was on the microphone all day and quickly shuffled everyone over to the second stop of the Down Low, the 140' flat ‘Rail of Ultimate Endurance'.

140 feet to glory.

Slowly but surely the large group started to get a feel for the long ‘Rail of Ultimate Endurance', with a number of riders overcoming the challenging cross fall-line set up to almost make it to the end. Of notable mention was Mason Hambly's nose press which went well past the halfway mark, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to find himself in the money. Elliot Catton snatched up $40 from Greg Goulter, who was waving a wad of twenties at the end of the rail, for his 50/50, but the trick of the day was certainly Adam Carmichael's boardslide. The rail was so long that his boardslide included an extremely smooth and styley stalefish grab for the first 70 feet and then he switched it up to a nose grab for the second 70 feet, making it all the way to the end.

(62-footer and 'The Widow-Maker' on page 2)