Hero-Shot-of-Alex-Hereford-on-his-way-to-a-2nd-Place-Men's-Snowboard-finish
Hero shot of Alex Hereford on his way to a second place finish

Words By Anders Isaacson
Photos by Paul Heran and Tucker Norred

On the night of Friday, January 11th, the first event of the annual Expression Sessions Series went down under the lights of Boreal Mountain. The Expression Sessions are a homegrown event series as well as a refreshing change from your everyday rail jams. This year’s theme – Terrain Park Expressions – looks to unleash the creativity of Boreal’s killer terrain park staff to come up with some crazy feature/setup that you’ve probably never seen before. This event included a down donkey rail (for the lil’ tykes) and a propane tank bonk to down bar which were located uphill from an elevated up-down double barrel rail that had never touched snow.

Jesse-Aves-hopped-his-way-to-a-3rd-place-Grom-Snowboard-Finish
Jesse Aves hopped his way to a third place finish for the Groms

NOAA forecasted a 20% chance of snow showers throughout the day, which was technically correct, but that sure went out the window as soon as the sun began to set. Despite the on-and-off torrent of snow, the 9-degree temperature and a very inconvenient chain control stop on Interstate 80, more than 65 competitors turned up to battle it out across 8 divisions (Grom, Teen, Men and Women for both Ski and Snowboard). While a decent sized crowd of 20-30 spectators braved the conditions and made the 100-yard trek up the hill to the venue, another 10-20 people took in the action from the warmth of the Boreal Lodge.

Meanwhile, as soon as the competition was underway the action was anything but cold. The snowboarders were up first and set the bar high for the skiers. Lou Macias led the pack with a hardway backside 270 gap to the down of the up-down on his way to a first place finish in Men’s Snowboard and a shiny new board from Arbor for his efforts. Other highlights included Ryland West’s high speed 50-50 to gap over the down with a stylish method and Alex Hereford’s onslaught of cab 270’s and big airs gapping to the down.

Women-Represent
Women Represent

With what has become an Expression Session tradition, the night wound down with a free pizza feed and award ceremony in the Boreal Lodge followed by a swag toss with everything from hoodies and beanies to wax and DVDs.

The second Expression Session is on the calendar for February 8th at Boreal Mountain and will once again be fueled by a full roster of sponsors, including Woodward Tahoe, Sessions, Lib Tech, Arbor, GNU, ThirtyTwo, Black Strap, Arnette, Nixon, Burger Me and Blue Coyote Bar & Grill.

Men's-SB-1-Lou-Macias,-2-Alex-Hereford,-3-Ryland-West
Men’s Podium

Women's-SB---Ashley-Vander-Meer,-Skittles-Driscoll,-Jaimie-Deister
Women’s Podium

Registration is from 5-6pm; action kicks off at 6:30pm!

Sorry everybody, snowing too hard to bust out the video cameras. Edit coming next time.

Men’s Snowboard
1. Lou Macias
2. Alex Hereford
3. Ryland West

Grom Snowboard
1. Caleb Bonneville
2. Elias Maas
3. Jesse Aves

Women’s Snowboard
1. Ashley Vander Meer
2. Skittles Driscoll
3. Jaimie Deister

Burger Me! Best Crash
1. Garrett Jurach