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Red Bull Peek in the Park

By iZine | 09 February 2010

On the 10th of December something a little bit special descended upon Bristol. Red Bull undertook the challenge of creating a jump that would test some of the countries best free skiers and snowboarders.

They sure didn’t disappoint, with an overnight stream of lorries transporting over sixty tones of snow to Brandon Hill, they created “Peak in the Park”, a truly astonishing natural landing slope with a five metre tower as a drop-in leading into a two metre high kicker.

This set up had everything needed to bring a bit of magic to an otherwise dark and dreary mid December night; you had the snow, the apres ski bar with hot red bull and of course the music, all within walking distance of Park Street. The audience, of which there was nearing a 2500 were treated to the sort of aerial tricks that defied belief, with competitors traveling from all over to take advantage of this once in a life time opportunity.

The competition was held in two parts, the first entailed each rider digging deep into their bag of tricks to impress the crowd. We were shown a massive variety of different flips, turns and grabs, to give us an idea of how good these really are. If they succeeded in getting a cheer from the crowd they were given £10 for their troubles, this went on for half an hour, giving the crowd a chance to appreciate what was to come. From this we moved straight to the knockout competition, with the riders being split into pairs and competing to go through to the next round.

The technical ability of these riders and their obvious love for their sport shone through, and in between the odd crash (much to the enjoyment of the crowd) we saw the standard of tricks escalate from round to round. The eventual winner got his hands on £200 with the runner up receiving £75, but this seemed of little significance to either in the end as they clearly just wanted to carry on going.

Old and young were able to stand together and marvel and what had been created for this one night, in the knowledge that by the morning most of the snow would have melted and little would be left to show what had gone on.

What made this event even more astonishing was the lack of advertising that was done for it, you had the feeling it just kind of snuck up on you. A little like some of the snowballs that went flying during the impromptu snowball fight half way through the evening.

And you never know maybe next year you might hear those rumors again, and who knows it might all happen again. I hope so!

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