Shred Fest, one of the biggest rail jams that comes through Utah each year extended out to Denver, Colorado this pre-season. October 6th snowboarder and skiers lined up to get their shred legs back underneath them. Besides the rail jam there’s a professional lumberjack competition, concerts, beer fest, marching band, food trucks and a stacked sponsor village with hot new items to sell. This year the proceeds were heading towards POW (Protect Our Winters) presenting the inaugural Denver Shred Fest with musical headliners Neon Indian, Rapidgrass and Easy Giant.
One could feel the energy as you descended Ruby Hill at Shredfest 2018. The stoke was real for all to be riding once again! You couldn’t find a face in the crowd that wasn’t grinning from ear to ear. The set up was simple and functional as a most proper “SHRED FEST” sign greeted you while the amazing staff and waft of smells from the food trucks welcomed you in. The music was jamming right away from DJ Neon Indian, Rapidgrass, DJ Reason the Citizen and flowed well into the night closing out with the live band The Kinky Fingers. All the while snowboard video premiers of Nightmarica and Satellite’s Disconnect were playing on a huge screen next to the stage. The beer was flowing like waterfalls in the PNW with support from vendors like 10Barrel Brewing and ShredFest sponsor Pacifico. Protect Our Winters even had a virtual reality at their vendor booth! The Lost Girls, Satellite Boardshop, and Nightmare Snowboards were all out there strutting their products, selling stuff off like hotcakes.
As the night wore on, the crowd got even more hype as the rail jam kicked off. With a set-up consisting of a down-flat, a pole jam, and a down rail with two wall rides connected by a piece of wood at the end, one knew this was going to be a night filled with creativity! First drop was practice round in which both skiers and snowboarders dropped as many times as possible in order to get a feel for the course and find their shred legs again. I have never seen so many people hitting three rails at once! Next round was skier qualifiers followed by snowboarders. Kaily Blackburn even managed to get a back 180 out of the DF! Between qualifiers and the final round in the rail jam, the lumberjack competition went down! The crowd moved in one huge mass from one side of the venue to the other to see how fast one could chuck wood haha. The final heat was super heavy as the sun went down, the beer flowed, and the rails slid faster. From one footers to backflips to Shawn Murphy needing 7 staples, ShredFest 2018 was one for the books!
