Photos: Bob Plumb
Minnesota State Capitol Building
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saturday, February 1st, 2025
Quin Ellul held a water bottle in one hand and jammed a screwdriver slowly into the cap with the other, twisting it a bit until a hole appeared. He squeezed the bottle, giving it a little test. A stream of mist shot out of the hole in the cap.
“This is actually good icing temperature,” he said, turning and walking towards the ledge.
I knew better than to ask Quin what the temperature was. I couldn’t convert Celsius and he couldn’t convert Fahrenheit so I just took his word for it. It’s easy to forget someone is Canadian until it’s time to measure something.
He stood above the ledge, aimed his bottle down, and squeezed, the plastic crunching as he did. Water began covering the granite top. He worked slowly, methodically. His eyes were locked on. He was building a base, turning the water to ice, then waiting a bit, then doing it all over again. The ledge was going to slide, Quin was making sure of it.
While we waited for the ice to set, we took stock of the course. There was the out ledge, where we were standing, with a down rail above it to hit as a line. On the opposite end of the course was a down rail to down ledge line. A big granite pad sat below everything, a massive jump was built before it. That was the obligatory winch setup, a terrifying zone meant to separate the true warriors from the rest of the field. And in the middle of everything, in the same location as the year before, sat the piste de resistance, the all-knowing, all-important down-flat-down.
A kink rail to a snowboarder is like fire to a caveman: enticing, frightening, beautifully simple with moments of subtle complexity shooting out like rogue ashes. Kink rails are the genesis for all that is good in life. Kink rails deserve poems written about them, famous odes by famous writers. In a perfect world, kink rails deserve statues. But this isn’t a perfect world. And quite frankly, a kink rail existing on the front steps of the Minnesota State Capitol building was pretty damn good. Also, now that I’m thinking about it, a statue of a kink rail would just look like a kink rail and people would just try to jib it anyway.
A good layer of ice finally existed and the ledge was now as smooth as a box you might find in a terrain park. Quin knew what he was doing and I was thankful for that. Anything to minimize the chaos.
Zone 1: The Winch
It was carnage from the beginning. The snow had started to fall. I wasn’t sure when it had happened, but when the gray clouds gave way it came down hard. Clear glasses and goggles sat on the riders' faces. The roar of the crowd meshed with the buzz of the speakers to create this monolithic wall of deafening sound. There was also the steady whine of the winch. It was a constant reminder of why we were all there.
Everything blended together. Riders dropped in quick succession with no breaks between them like they were paratroopers filing out of a plane. Boom boom boom. Drop drop drop. 720s and airchairs. Backflips and methods. Ryan Paul—in classic Ryan Paul fashion—attempted a switch front flip onto the ledge not once, but twice. Each time only getting three-quarters of the rotation around. The riders kept dropping and the snow kept falling. Rabid fans screamed. The mayor was in attendance and I could only imagine the shock he felt seeing the situation unfold. This was not weekend warrior snowboarding. This was carnage. And in our sport, is there anything better?
As it always does, qualifiers gave way to finals. The brave few who were able to stay on their feet moved on. The others could rest and let out a sigh of relief over the fact that they had hit the winch and lived to tell the tale. I stood by the drop-in as the riders filed through. Egan Wint, who had won the last two Heavy Metal events stood next to me. She was strapping in. There was no need to ask because, frankly, it wasn’t even a question. If you knew Egan, if you knew what she had done last year on the winch jump, then you knew it was coming again. She grabbed the handle and dropped in.
I don’t quite know how to calibrate a winch. More specifically, I’m not sure if a smaller person needs more or less speed than a larger person. The winches were running the same for everyone and I can only assume that impacted each rider differently. But, when Egan—standing confidently at 4 feet 11 inches—flew, she flew.
It was a big backflip, laid out and slow. There is no doubt that if she had hit the landing, she would have landed it. But, snowboarding exists in doubt. Speed is a variable, not a certainty. The only thing any of us were certain of was that Egan was going back to try again.
She stood by the drop, patiently waiting as riders gapped over the giant marble slab with varying degrees of success. Veda grabbed the winch, she was dropping right before Egan. The rope tightened then pulled and Veda sped towards the jump. I’ve known Veda’s riding for a bit now, and I shouldn’t have been surprised. But still, I was. A big underflip, slow and beautiful. She landed and the crowd somehow broke out into an even louder roar of applause. Egan stood holding the winch handle. We looked at each other and I couldn’t help but ask the question everyone was thinking. Are you going to take that?
There wasn’t a moment of hesitation in her response.
“No,” she said, and then the winch pulled her in.
Another backflip, this one even bigger which, if you went too big the run before, probably doesn’t help.
Zone 2: The Lines
The lines were quick, so much so that you had to play the outside when getting off the first rail if you wanted any chance at getting a good path into the ledge. But that would be a problem for a lesser set of boarders. The snow had stopped and the goggles had come off. It was time to jib. There was less chaos in Zone 2 but still, the flow of riders ran just as quickly. One rider would drop on one side, then someone would drop on the opposite side. Back and forth.
Again, it’s hard not to mention Ryan Paul going wallie to backflip on the down ledge. The crowd went wild.
Like last year’s event, Zone 2 was a transition, a place for riders to get back into the flow of jibbing after soaring through the air on the jump. 270s were being doled out like cards at a poker game and you could quickly tell who had been sharpening their knives in the streets only a few days earlier. Quin’s ice job held and the riders had no issues grinding across the granite. Midwest local Sam Anderson walked through the setup like it was just another day on the ropes. I would call him a technician but I believe the proper term is engineer since that’s what he got his degree in. Veda, running hot off her Zone 1 victory, ran through the course with unparalleled consistency and Austin Vizz swiveled his way to the bottom of the rail and onto the podium in Zone 2.
Zone 3: The Kink Rail
It’s funny, the way snowboarding resonates differently with people depending on their level of involvement. To the crowd of hungry fans, the winch jump is the most comprehensible. Who went the biggest and who spun the most are easy scales to measure success. But for the boarders, for the people who genuinely understand snowboarding and the nuances that make it special, the kink rail is the place where you can truly shine.
It was a slow start, but that was warranted. The rail was long and not too steep, more of a balancing act than a hell ride. People were warming up with fifty-fifty’s and boardslides, just trying to make it to the end. The Slush livestream was full of angry viewers, people almost begging the riders to do something. But it was different in person. The energy and the intensity of the situation still existed. It was like playing a scratch-off, knowing that even if there’s no prize to be scratched away, the possibility is still there. Every fan who was there felt that possibility, holding their breath when someone got on, knowing they could be watching a winner.
Joey Fava, to his credit, saw the situation in front of him. He knew that if he was going to spend his time working towards the bottom of the rail, he might as well do it with guns blazing. In an attempt to echo his show-stopping moment from last year’s kink rail session, he tossed up a back lip on his first drop. Other riders saw this mentality and began to follow suit. Ryan Paul started throwing hail-mary back 270s onto the rail. Kevin Gillespie was doing switch back 5050s so smoothly that we all wondered if they were actually switch.
The judges, too, saw the situation for what it was, picking riders for the finals based on their potential along with the trick(s) they had done. And when the sun finally came down, when the lights came on and finals began, it was time for that potential to be unleashed.
There’s always some sort of tragedy at these things. There’s a moment that could turn poetic, beautiful so quickly, but never materializes. For me, there were two. Jess Perlmutter and Kevin Gillespie were the tragic figures in this event. Both of them were trying tricks so wonderfully unique to them, that all I could do was watch and hope. Jess was trying to half-cab through the kink rail. Already a crowd favorite at only 15 years old, nothing would have made me happier than to see her get to the end. But if I were to guess, I would say there will be more moments for her to take home gold in the future. Kevin, much to the shock of the crowd, was trying to switch back lip through the kink. Even the attempts were leaving me speechless.
If there are tragic figures, there must also be heroes. Iris Pham greasing a boardslide through the kink rail just like the year before proves that there are some things you just don’t lose.
And then there was Quin. He stood at the top of the kink rail with that trademark intensity in his eyes. Possibly the only Canadian in the field, he had his whole country rooting for him.
“He’s got Canada on his back,” Todd Richards said into the mic as Quin inched his way down the drop-in. Pardon me, the starter, as he would say.
As soon as he popped onto the rail we knew he was going to the end. The crowd waited anxiously. Backside 180. I could almost see his brain saying, hold it, hold it. And then he was off, riding away so casually that one might think it didn’t even happen. There was an eruption, screams, and cheers. It was a standout moment for someone you wouldn’t usually see on the contest circuit.
“Canada’s hyped,” Quin told me as we were getting a beer later that night.
Oh, I’m sure they were.
Zone 1:
Veda Hallen and Beck Lobben
Runner Up:
Iris Pham and Joey Fava
Zone 2:
Veda Hallen and Sam Anderson
Runner Up:
Jess Perlmutter and Austin Visintainer
Zone 3:
Iris Pham and Austin Visintainer
Runner Up:
Jess Perlmutter and Quin Ellul
Overall Winners:
Veda Hallen and Austin Visintainer
