Pitt snowboard team rocks annual Rail Jam

When people hear the season’s first snow is arriving, most look up.

But on Friday night,… When people hear the season’s first snow is arriving, most look up.

But on Friday night, their eyes were incorrectly directed.

Truckloads of snow were delivered to the Cathedral lawn as the Pitt Intercollegiate Snowboard Team held its third annual Rail Jam.

Riders from Pitt, Community College of Allegheny County, La Roche, Penn State and West Virginia competed in the event sponsored by Burn Energy Drink.

“It was a lot of fun to have five different teams competing, we usually just have WVU and Penn State,” president of PIST senior Abbie Sigmon said.

The downhill course consisted of a ramp one-and-half feet high leading to an 8-foot-long box, and farther down the hill a 4-foot ramp leading to 16-foot-long box, which dipped down around the middle of the box.

“It’s gotten a little bit bigger and a little bit better each year,” senior Dave DiNuzzo, advertising manager of PIST, said.

The snow comes from local ice rinks, DiNuzzo said, adding that after the rinks use their Zamboni machines they have the excess snow, which PIST used to cover a portion of the Cathedral lawn facing Forbes Avenue.

DiNuzzo said at most, six inches of snow is the ideal amount for the competition.

The snow is placed on top of carpets laid in the grass to prevent the grass from becoming muddy and the course becoming slippery. DiNuzzo said there isn’t much PIST can do to prevent melting other than “bring a lot of snow,” and they learned this the hard way after they had some issues with snow melting the first year of the competition. They also held the first Rail Jam in the afternoon, whereas the past two have been at night when the sun shouldn’t provide any troubles.

With the carpet laid on the lawn, the first batch of snow arrived around 6:30 p.m. in completely full U-Haul and pick-up trucks.

About 20 of the event’s riders and group members arrived early to shovel the snow from the trucks into wheelbarrows. The wheelbarrows were then run over to the lawn and dumped onto the carpet. Group members with shovels packed the snow onto the carpet.

About an hour later, a second pick-up truck filled with snow arrived, and the group went back to setting up the course. And an hour after that, the U-Haul and another pick-up truck dropped the final shipment of snow.

With the course set up, the riders began to practice, as spectators lined the Cathedral lawn, bundled up to keep warm. A DJ took the fans through an award tour, spinning tracks from the likes of hip-hop legends A Tribe Called Quest to the Jackson 5 and artists covering a wide range of genres.

The competition featured four female riders in their own heat, and three heats of male riders, broken down with about five riders per heat. The top three riders from each male heat advanced to the final round.

The fans cheered on the riders, who impressed with aerial acrobatics and great balance, as they grinded down each box using every possible placement imaginable of their boards on the box.

All of the riders were greeted with loud “Oh”s or “Ah”s from the crowd, depending on how their runs down the hill were finished. But if one sound was constant all night from the fans, it was applause. All riders were applauded throughout the night for their efforts.

The competition was judged by friends of PIST members who work at Seven Springs Mountain Resort, about an hour southeast of Pittsburgh.

Kyle Becker of Penn State won the event. His prize was a free trip to Killington, Vt., which included his lift ticket, hotel room and travel accommodations.

While most fans left after the competition ended, the few that stuck around were treated with some more entertaining runs from the snowboarders. A few attempted, and competed, front flips, while one rider grabbed the arm of a friend while grinding the box and spun around numerous times before jumping to the ground.

“I think this was by far our best [Rail Jam],” Sigmon said, adding the event had about the same turnout as last year, possibly a little more.

PIST started in 1996 and has grown in number and activities since. Right now the club has about 60 students, DiNuzzo said, noting that the number seems to grow every time it has a meeting.

“We’ve really tried to step it up a lot since ’96,” Sigmon said. We try to go to New England at least once a month, we do a big winter trip every year, and now we do a really big, week-long spring break trip.”

DiNuzzo said PIST has a trip to Killington planned for Nov. 30, a trip to Quebec City, Quebec, over winter break and a trip to Quebec during spring break.