Rolling into the parking lot of Grouse Mountain on the north shore of Vancouver, a magnitude of shreds are checking into Quiksilver's Showdown Over the City's registration tent. Today is a typical west coast spring morning: it's raining sideways and gloomier looking than the poor transvestite coming down off something gnarly that I had encountered while quickly walking out of a seedy breakfast joint earlier. Vancouver has character, and that is what makes coming to Grouse such a contrast to what the city offers: one could be downtown amongst the fashionistas, hipsters, suits and college kids or down on Hastings shooting heroin with some junkie at 8am and not even twenty minutes later one can be hopping on the Skyride tram - riding a different kind of high - above prowling Grey Wolves (a parcel of Grouse's land has been dedicated to these endangered wolves, who are retirees from the big screen, and would not survive being released into the wild), while overlooking Greater Vancouver, the Salish Sea, and the Gulf Islands.

Friday, March 25: Day 1
Seeing old favorites like Dave Fortin, Matt Belzile, and Craig Beaulieu, it's impossible not to reflect on the Showdown's history. Dave Fortin remembers coming down when Grouse hosted a contest called the WindDown ShowDown back in 2004, which was a contest amongst film crews ranging from Alterna, the Gathering, White Out to the Skids-and it was his crew, Gnarcore, that had won. Grouse's end-of-season contest disappeared for a few years, and resurfaced in 2007 as the Quiksilver Showdown Over the City [SDOC] with two giant hips on either side of the park, and it was a send-fest. Growing up riding Grouse over the past ten years and riding in this year's SDOC for his first time, Sam Weston remembers watching Dave Fortin do these huge frontside 10s off his toes into the hip that year.

"It brought the crowd to their feet," says Weston, "seeing Fortin launch himself into the air with the city of Vancouver in the background was amazing."

The year after they changed the location of the comp and built a huge jump with a few different options of boxes and rails after. Unfortunately, Fortin was carted out that year, but it was Kevin Griffin's effortless style of every spin in the book that proved that this contest was one where some up-and-comer, park rider or some backcountry shred could kick some contest-chasing pro rider's ass. Two years back, a 16-year-old Seb Toutant pulled out his old Tootsie Roll - a backside 1080 double-cork - changing everything and the ante was upped. That same year, Fortin took the Announcer's Choice award for a huge frontside 1080.

"I love the relationship I have with this event," says Fortin, "it's always a challenge in snowboarding to get ahead of the game and to showcase new tricks or skills in a comp or on video, and this one has been really good to me, and it has kicked my butt too."

About as far as the Showdown got on Friday. Grznar photo.

Snapping back to reality, and parking closely to the retirement community of the grey nomads, a blue Ford rolls backwards across the parking lot. Perhaps it was a harbinger that something other than snowboarding is going to go down today, or maybe it was just a strong gust of wind, but regardless some lady wearing rose-coloured glasses runs up, grabs two rocks and shoves them under the tires. Beaulieu had just bought this truck after winning second place at the Showcase Showdown the week prior in Whistler, and as soon as Beaulieu had re-parked his truck (which he calls the Blue Waffle), the news came down the mountain: The Showdown would be held off until Saturday, due to the weather conditions and riders not being able to see a foot in front of them.

Craig McMorris salutes the Blue Waffle. Nat Langmann photo.

Brad Boughton (one of the judges), Beaulieu, Craig McMorris and his buddy from back home, Colin Leslie, and I decide that the best way to kill an afternoon in Vancouver would be to head to the Vancouver Aquarium. With a little pit stop at the hotel, to add to the tale of the Blue Waffle's existence, Beaulieu locks his keys inside. Determined to break in, within three minutes Beaulieu has smashed open his back window. Across the street, a bum pushing his shopping cart is eyeing up the Blue Waffle's new-found entrance, so we bust over to the Aquarium before the cart-guy decides he's going to move in.

Case in point. Nat Langmann photo.

Picking a best-of was tough; I'm still not sure if it was the Dora the Explorer 4D show that Beaulieu made us sit through, the whale show, the sideways-swimming fish that blew my mind or that I had stumbled upon the epicenter of rat-tails and bad styles. Highlights included a guy with a top-hat wearing a blazer haphazardly encrusted with patches ranging from Janis Joplin to Motley Crue - his commitment to rock and roll was apparent by his ability to wear his own modern-day Woodstock meets Ozzfest on his sleeve and across his back - to the guy rocking a skinny braided rat's tail, to the tassled biker-jacket-wearing dude with piercings, dreads down to his ass, all topped off with a baby blue bandana. Anyways, the people watching at the Aquarium is about as spectacular as the dolphin show, so the next time the weather turns on you and snowboarding isn't looking so pretty, head to the Aquarium and live out your own personal Vice Magazine's Dos-and-Don'ts-like ethos.

(hit page 2 for results and photos)