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It was a Monday and the piercing sound of my alarm rang relentlessly as I blindly searched, left handed, for the forever buzzing iPhone. It was 7:30 am and my immediate thought was ‘work,’ but as I opened my eyes, what came into focus on my phone was a reminder that read, ‘Nixon Into the Wild.’

The second Into the Wild event presented by Nixon kicked off with a bang. Well, maybe more of a pop since BB guns aren’t as loud, or as illegal, as real guns in California. Rails and coping were slid, barrels were ollied and bowls were skated. Targets were impaled by arrows and hatchets were hucked. A modern day Robin Hood even showed up representing Totally Board. All the while, 30-pack, after 30-pack was consumed. So were ribs, chicken and potato salad. Lets just say Nixon treated us like royalty.

Into the Wild was designed to bring together core shops for a day of healthy, fun competition. As shop employees, we sell snowboards, skateboards, surfboards and everything that goes with those things. We live these sports and this is a great chance to spend a day outside enjoying some man games. The seven teams consisted of five competitors, two to compete in snowboarding and skateboarding and one for each of the other categories: hatchet throwing, archery and BB gun shooting. The snowboarders were given two judged runs on the lower section Boreal’s rail garden. Each team in the skate jam had to endure a five minute, two-man scramble which left most winded. The hatchet throwers were given three throws to prove their skills, the archers had five arrows to hit a Nixon logo and the sharpshooters had one minute to hit as many cans as they could in the PBR shooting gallery.

Totally Board, out of Truckee, came out on top, sweeping first place in every category. The Ledge Boardshop of Squaw Valley, my team, earned ourselves a second place finish, while SBI/Wavelengths out of Fresno walked away with third place. The other teams were as follows: Pacific Wave of Santa Cruz, Dave’s Boardshop of Tahoe City, The Butterbox of Northstar and The Boardinghouse of South Lake Tahoe.

The day was a huge success and smiles, laughs and high fives were shared seemingly every five seconds. Special thanks to Nixon and Sara Melhaff for putting on the event, Boreal Mountain Resort for hosting it, emcee and all around stand up guy Joel Cline, Brian Neri for his hard work, nine year old skateboard phenom Logan Frank, Burton Knowbuddy Brady Lem, snowboard legend Dave Downing and the crew of rad judges for helping keep the stoke alive.

Results:

Best Snowboard Shop – Totally Board
Best Skate Shop – Totally Board
Best Mountain Man Shop – Totally Board

First Place Overall Shop – Totally Board – Truckee
Second Place Overall Shop – The Ledge – Squaw
Third Place Overall Shop – SBI/Wavelengths – Fresno
Fourth Place Overall Shop – Pacific Wave – Santa Cruz

Nixon.com

See also: The 2015 Tom Sims Retro World Championships: Fast & loose California snowboarding