Usually when you see one of these contests pop up, you expect to see a plethora of home video quality footage and amateur level riding. That is clearly no longer the case.
Jackson Hole local pro Robb Kingwell just won the $1000 monthly prize for best edit, and considering the snow most the the country has had over the month of January, it was a pretty awesome edit indeed. There may, however, be even more significant implications to this victory. Right now there is no truly comprehensive contest for big mountain snowboarders. There are various tours and one-offs that all take place within the confines of a resort on a particular day regardless of conditions. And there is the Ultranatural style contest which Travis Rice has put together a few times, basically the closest thing snowboarding has to a surf competition. You see, what surfers figured out long ago that the biggest riding and most epic feats cannot be planned out on a calendar and limited to a singular locale. That is what led to the inception of the Billabong XXL. And it is time for snowboarding to catch up.
With GoPros capable of taking better video then most professional camcorders a decade ago, is it time for competitive big mountain snowboarding to evolve?
