The crowd went wild as Lynn, Rice and Jackson took the stage to accept awards at TransWorld Snowboarding’s Rider Polls. The ‘Rider of the Year’ nod was Rice’s second for the year, after also receiving the honor in Snowboarder’s February issue.

By Ryan Wilson

After being snowed in at Crystal Mtn for three days we woke early and hit the highway to see the carnage that had crippled the Cascades over the past week. With 5 feet of snow in 6 days riders were taking POW laps to warm up for the afternoon event. Fellow Montanan, Joe Pope started it off with some words about Aaron and the format for the slalom. Which was to bottom line “Smash Life, have fun, and rip for A-Rob.” Event Organizer Shane Stalling started it off with a run, cheers from the crowd, and a snowball to the face. As the riders worked their way down the course, some took off for powder runs while others sat back and watched the snow fall awaiting their turn. Word on the hill was Kevin Fisher threw a front flip on course and braved the judges by throwing a slasher turn at the finish line to blind the crowd. Trains were run, some young ripper ran the course, and most of all everyone celebrated life on the hill in true A-Rob fashion. Make sure to check out the Manifest Movie and Love life.

Thanks to all the sponsors that brought the event to Alpental and to those that helped fund the A-Rob Plant a Seed Foundation. 

Results:

Dudes:
1 – Thadius Hukari (53.53)
2 – Marcel Dolak (53.89)
3 – Jacob Krugmire (54.00)
4 – Jay Kelly (54.24)
5 – Michael Anderson (54.83)
6 – Riley Goodwin (55.08)
7 – Paul Stanley (55.28)
8 – Morgan Herbert (55.40)
9 – Daniel Sandberg (55.49)
10 – Nicolas Dometrio (55.54)

Babes:
1 – Robyn Borneman (1:00.14)
2 – Kayla Kobelin (1:00.85)
3 – Kari Hoss (1:02.28)
4 – Mallary Sullivan (1:03.59)

Aaron was always the driving force behind this project. When it seemed like things weren’t gonna work out he always found a way to make it happen. He loved a challenge! I spent this last winter traveling around to many of his favorite places, meeting up with friends, and making some new ones along the way. I feel so lucky to have been able to share such great times with such an amazing person.

When Aaron passed away in Chile this last July it was hard to even think about the movie, let alone sit down and edit hours of his footage from the winter. It wasn’t until Blake Paul sent me an email highlighting the fact that one of Aaron’s goals all season was to get everyone down to Chile and film a segment for the movie that I came to realize something that should have been so obvious. We had to head South and finish what he had started. Although we were physically missing the one person who really should have been on that trip I feel like he was actually with us more than ever. We’ll miss you A-ROB!
-Sam Tuor