Photos by Greg Williamson, Tyler Sym, and Emily Kim
The sixth annual Rail Jam, hosted by The Freerider’s Union of Colorado College (FUCC), was held on Friday, Feb. 26 on the Preserve Hill. Skiers slid, jumped, and grinded rails and boxes in the melting snow, while Carnivore Club grilled chicken and students DJed the event.
Senior Thomas Crandall, co-president of FUCC, was the main judge of the event. Judging was based on who the best all-around competitor was, which entails what type of tricks they did and what features they hit. Junior Leah Di Filippo won the ladies segment, Matt Saraceno, junior, won best skier, and junior Jake Paron won best snowboarder.
“Rail Jam is one of our bigger events on campus and it takes a lot of planning. We get a pretty nice budget from CCSGA,” said junior Brandon Marcus, active member of FUCC. “But, the hardest things to coordinate are where we get our rails and where we are getting our snow and also making sure we are getting enough people to help shovel and set up because it’s a lot of work.”
The lack of natural snow on campus provided an obstacle for the club and production of Rail Jam.
“It was hard to find snow, especially since the last two years we already had some natural snow to work with,” said Marcus. FUCC had to bring in three dump trucks full of snow from Silverthorne for the event.
The snow from Silverthorne was free. However, transporting it to CC used around a third of the Club’s budget.
“The lack of snow added another element of surprise to the course. It forced you to stop quickly,” said sophomore Christopher Birtch, member of FUCC and skier in Rail Jam. “There were also some collisions, which added some entertainment for the crowd.”
“This year, we also had a hard time finding rails because of liabilities concerning mountains lending them to us,” said Marcus. “To fix this, Colorado College built us a rail this year and we borrowed a box from Blind Side. The rest of the rails we improvised with PVC pipes.”
Safety is an important aspect of Rail Jam and ensuring that every skier is responsible while doing their tricks. This year, skiers were required to sign up on Summit and sign a liability form, agreeing to wear a helmet when competing and to be liable for their own tricks and injuries.
The club attempted to mitigate potential injuries by placing bales of hay in front of fences.
“It was definitely a little sketchy of a set up this year because there was less snow and exposed grass. However, you have to ski at your own risk,” said Marcus. “I definitely think this year was the best Rail Jam I have been to. It was a lot of fun and we had a great turn out to help shovel and set up. This year we also had a lot more skiers competing.”
He continued: “For next year, we will work on making it a more flawless event and trying to manage the competing skiers to make sure everyone has the opportunity to ski as much as they want and have as much fun as they possibly can. We also would like to try to get a fourth dump truck of snow for next year, since we have no way to predict natural snow fall. Bigger and better is the goal.”
