As the snow starts to melt and the season winds down, Brighton Resort always ends up getting extra wild for its closing weekend. DJ Velvet was on the ones and twos, spinning a mix of todays hits along with a sick collection of ‘80s classics. The weather, despite ominous speculation by weathermen, ended up being perfect, with temperatures in the mid fifties and low sixties, and the snow stayed consistently slushy with maximum spray-ability.

The Beach Bash is the annual celebration of the closing weekend at Brighton Resort. The event is presented by Natural Light and Neff Headwear along with lots of other cool sponsors such us Pit Viper Shades, Coalatree Organics, Goal Zero Solar, and SLUG Magazine ourselves.

The Beach Bash contest is always the heart of closing weekend. The contest setup was a little on the basic side, featuring a down box, a down rail with a 4 inch donkey at the end, a twenty foot jump and a flat bar over a mini beach ball pit. I overheard some riders at the top wishing the course design was a little more creative for closing weekend, but with a thousand dollars going to the first place shredder, most people were quiet as they hucked their carcasses as hard as they could at the obstacles.

As the athletes took turns throwing themselves at the various features, a few monoboarders jumped in the mix, doing some special variations of ski and snowboard tricks themselves. Board slides, fifty fifties, and flips look extra sketchy when done by someone standing the wrong way on a snowboard holding poles. The crowd ate it up though, even MC BJ Emery couldn’t deny the monoboarders respect. They earned cash just like the boarders.

In the end, Brighton local and park crew digger Everest Arnold (@thehighestmtn) walked away with the gold after landing just about every switch trick you could think of on the down donkey rail. Arnold rode clean and showed his mastery of board control. His hard bails were worth it—Arnold walked home with a thousand dollar bonus in his pocket.

In second place was Jeff Hopkins, shredder extraordinaire, who spent the day getting wild like he did to win the TransAm finals in Big Bear. Hopkins took home five hundred bucks for his consistent efforts at the Beach Bash. Hopkins makes riding these rails look easy.

Brady Larson stepped up and claimed third place. As a veteran champion of the Beach Bash, Larson knows what it takes to get on the podium, and claim a hundred dollars in the process. Larson utilized his time getting creative doing tail blocks across the flat bar, 720’s on the jump and 270’s on the down bar.

For the girls, Hailee Mattingley finished on top. Mattingley is seventeen and is a family shredder—you can find her on hill with her dad and sisters almost every day of the week, helping each other progress.

After the awards, Neff had a product toss hosted by Neff TM JCope Team rider Dylan Thompson and the Natty Girls with lots of hats, tees, and sunglasses. Like you’d expect, kids flocked to the product toss like vultures on road kill.

It wasn’t until the awards were given out and the product toss had been completed, a light spring drizzle began to fall on the resort. Everything was packed up and the day was a total success. Not bad for a Beach Bash that has a habit for dumping powder storms on closing weekend.

If your not familiar with the beach bash make sure you make it out next year—it is single handedly the most fun day on snow in the history of the world.

Check out photos from the event here.