This year we brought something new to the Grenade Games for all the people who couldn't make it but wanted to get a bit of the experience. The Remote Control video contest challenged home editors to put together a 2-5 minute video using the same basic raw materials as our editors, at the same time as us.

As the games began, we started throwing all our clips online, soon there were hundreds of them. Within the first day we got our first entry and more followed. The winner snuck in right under the deadline, or right after, I can't remember, and his high energy edit won over the judges.

Congratulations to Jon Veder and thanks to everyone who spent time putting together an edit and sent it in. See you all next year.

d.

Grand Finale, Savage Blade, The End and someone is going home in a new car.

The bottom half of Whistler hasn’t been getting the same kind of snow as the upper mountain this season, so the Whistler parks staff had their work cut out for them when they set out to build the course for the Grenade Games Six Grand Finale. After last years amazing version of a slopestyle, we wanted to once again bring something new to the idea of slopestyle courses. The trick is to make it fun enough to ride and exciting enough to watch. But the bottom line is that it wouldn’t be Grenade Games unless we gave everyone a thousand options of how to get wild.

the course

By the time practice was over I knew this was going to be a legendary night. People were trying next level tricks in places you’d never expect, and putting together imaginative and sketchy lines. Considering the hectic days and late nights that had already taxed competitors, it was a small miracle that there were enough riders left standing to step to the course, but in fact many had to be cut as the Invite list was longer than there was room and everyone wanted to take a swing at the 10 thousand dollar first prize.

I’ll just say this, riding without a shirt is sketchy on the rough spring slush, but dropping your droors as well is borderline psychotic. That’s just one of the many colourful words that people were using to describe Kael Hill’s performance this week. Although he may not have stood on any podiums, he took home three different 500-dollar prizes for his various antics, and more importantly made an indelible impression on everyone who watched him.

When we throw a pipe jam, you have to go into it knowing that we’re not looking for the same old crap that the idiots at the FIS are. Grenerds don’t care about linking your triple lindy to your switch roast beef, we want to see the guy who went to bed at five in the morning hucking his meat as high as possible. It’s all about embracing the spirit of the Grenade Games, and that means, whoever is having the most fun, will probably win. Maybe.

This year the Blackcomb superpipe was embiggened yet again, now it is in the 22 foot plus range, and the weather, although overcast, was warm and comfortable. All in all, a perfect day to listen to some music, have some food and drink, hang out with your friends, and maybe ride some pipe.

Results:

1. Jordan Phillips

2. Kyle Thomas

3. Justin Lamoureaux

When we first came up with the idea for the Dual Slalom Mogul contest, we had a vision of a sunny, slushy mogul run, on a warm spring day, with music and barbecue and good times. Then we had to run it on an ice rink last year at Grenade Games 5.

Well this year brought us the conditions we’ve been waiting for; sun, warm temperatures and luckily a crew of slightly deranged and fearless snowboarders to boot. Vinyl Ritchie brought the tunes, The bbq was fired up and so was everyone who came out to watch, at last we had the contest we set out to have.

If you’ve ever seen those 70’s ski films with the daffy and spread eagle shots, with the tights and hot chicks in I SKI sunglasses, well then you know how fun moguls used to be. We added a Grenade twist and made everyone go around gates. Head to head. With mandatory airs in the middle.

This is what is becoming legendary about the Grenade Games, really good snowboarding but a without a hint of seriousness. In the end last year’s winner Myrosha Daley managed to prove that he was no fluke and beat Dennis Bannock in the finals to take third place and stay on the podium, but the final pitted Pablo Aristeguieta against local legend Travis Williams. And who won? Mark Sollors!

Well, Mark won “Most Radical dude” of the day for his straight line, karate chopping, ass over tea kettle crashing performance all day long. He’s in serious contention for Most Radical dude of the week after his performance at Sushi Village.

Searched and recovered.

Grenade Games Six, day 2 dawned wet and mild, but the mountain called so everyone shook off the party from the night before and headed on up. The Search and Recovery mission required Grenerds to search out 4 different spots on Whistler and Blackcomb, complete a required task, and make their way back down to the Longhorn where they would then complete one final task to try to win the day.

The real purpose of the event though, is to get everyone to go riding with their friends all day and in the process try to qualify for the Dual Slalom Mogul event. At the race center riders went head to head to try to make the top 40 and qualify. Other stops on the mission included a high ollie competition, the GT snowracer jump, and the meat helicopter which required riders to spin it, to win it.  Go here for the photos and here for the video.

Back at the Longhorn at the end of the day the secret final task was revealed: Asteroids! That’s right, an original asteroids arcade game from 1979 was brought in and people took shots at the high score. There may or may not have been some pinch hitters brought in, but as far as I know Charles White won the day. He did look a lot like Mike Fikowski though. Now before you start whining about things being fair, this is the Grenade Games, fair comes second behind funny every single time.

Stay tuned for the Dual Slalom Mogul contest, it’s not icy this year and this one is sure to be totally entertaining.