NICK PERATA: My name's Nick Perata.
The thing I like to do most when I'm not
riding steeps is jibbing.
You're riding on everything that you see in your path--
logs, rocks, small children, anything.
PIERRE WIKBERG: Jibbing, in a freaking neon jacket he had,
and was just like, oh, we're just jibbing.
Dreadlocks, just crazy Frogskins or something.
It just seemed really innocent back in the Tahoe days.
That word "jibbing" started, Nick Perata said it.
DAVE DOWNING: The whole jibbing thing was going on in
the late '80s.
It was just hitting little trees or rocks or whatever
that was non-snow obstacles.
It kind of translated into kids riding hand rails in the
street, or just doing stuff in the street--
small things.
And then that escalated into bigger and bigger things, like
Snow Park Technologies and Bear Mountain and other places
started building specific things for snowboarding.
And now look at it.
It's pretty crazy.
They're putting stair steps and kink rails and wall rides
in the snow.
It's pretty cool seeing how it came to be here.
CHRIS GUNNARSON: I told you we were bringing it back on a
2011 scale.
CHAD DINENNA: You can't really compare it to
the previous years.
It's on such a different scale.
CHRIS GUNNARSON: The last Jibfest was eight years ago.
And we set the bar so high with the original Nixon
Jibfest that if we were going to bring it back eight years
later, it needed to be on a whole new level of
awesomeness.
CHAD DINENNA: The best part of it is when all the
snowboarders come up for the first time, and they see it,
and they start to process it.
That's what it's all about.
It's like going from small town to the big city.
CHRIS GUNNARSON: Actually, Jeremy called it Awesome Town.
CHAD DINENNA: Awesome Town.
CHRIS GUNNARSON: Welcome to Awesome Town.
CHAD DINENNA: Welcome to Awesome Town.
JEREMY JONES: It's pretty on point, really.
Dudes are just stoked.
They're stoked to be here, the kids are stoked to be here.
They just saw all this when they grew up.
They've all just gotten bigger, and
so this is the biggest.
It's going to be super fun.
PAT BRIDGES: Throughout the whole course of snowboarding,
a common thread has always been skateboarding.
Taking the influence of skateboarding, because
everybody skates.
Taking that influence and bringing it to snowboarding.
PIERRE WIKBERG: I think if you are skateboarding and you're
snowboarding, it's natural to combine them.
Everyone who skateboards then rides a snowboard.
It just translates.
PAT BRIDGES: They just started trying to mimic skateboarding
beyond just how you grabbed your board or
riding a half pipe.
These guy's took mimicking skateboarding to all aspects
of snowboarding.
NATE COLE: We were trying to find hand rails more than
anything at that time when we first all started.
There was really nothing else to do, so we'd
snowboard after the days.
No one had a job hardly at all.
You couldn't skate.
There was no indoor skateboarding at all.
So you'd find--
if it was snowing enough, you'd just go find a hand rail
and slide on it.
But then it was limited, of course, with what you can do
with that, so it'd be picnic tables.
JAKE BLATTNER: We'd always get pissed during the holiday
seasons when everyone would come and they'd be eating on
the picnic tables.
I remember doing [INAUDIBLE] where [INAUDIBLE] would do
tail slides across the thing while people were
still eating and stuff.
ROAN ROGERS: We just went nuts on the hand rail stuff for a
couple years, and then I don't think we ever really thought
of it as we are starting something or anything.
We were more or less copying the skateboarders, you know
what I mean, and trying to do what they were doing.
NATE COLE: And I was just so much wanting to skateboard.
Most people were almost more skateboarders than they were
snowboarders.
They were just wanting to do that as much as anything, so
couldn't quite get that same feeling, but you were going
for that always.
You felt like it should be more like that.
DAVE DOWNING: There was a crew of dudes that were jibbing
stuff, and then it kind of faded away.
I don't remember the year, but it faded away for about five
years, I'd say.
And then, really, the truth is JP Walker and Jeremy Jones and
their little crew from Utah were the first ones to really
bring that whole jibbing think back into the limelight of
snowboarding.
JP WALKER: I always watched those old videos of those guys
jibbing, and that just seemed so cool.
And when I started snowboarding, that's what I
started doing.
So it wasn't like I was trying to make some
effort or bring it back.
It was just like, I'm just going to do what I like doing
and have fun doing it.
JEREMY JONES: I had "Hard, the Hungry, and the Homeless"
soundtrack in my Dotson B210 on tape that I recorded from
the VCR through the TV on to a tape.
That was my soundtrack so I'd hear all the snowboard sounds
and the slides down the rail driving to the mountain, and
that was it.
Burned the tape out because that was our scene.
JP WALKER: None of us were never really into contests at
all, but we'd been doing it.
There'd been all these different contests happening.
We'd been going to X Games and doing things.
And someone said the word "anti-contest." We need to
come up with this anti-contest.
And that wasn't so much like the direct motivation behind
the thing, but it was just kind of like, let's have an
event where only people we like are at this event.
We'll only invite people from the media that we like.
There won't be all these spectators that are just
creating unwanted pressure and stuff.
It kind of just started from there.
And then, I think just because we were so into jibbing at the
time, it was like, well, it's going to be a jib contest.
CHAD DINENNA: Just a couple things, you guys.
First of all, I want to thank everyone for coming.
It's been eight years since we brought everyone together for
an event like this.
The premise for me is just to say thanks to the people who
have supported the brand since the beginning, and to invite
some new people into the mix.
I think one of the fun things for us is, because as a brand,
as we've grown up--
my background being in a magazine--
we've really worked hard with the different media groups to
make it something that you guys can roll out of here and
get some really good exposure out of it.
And not only have a good time, but really reap the rewards of
your hard work and your fun times.
We try not to have a lot of rules to this.
This is not a contest.
It's a good time.
-There is a winner, though.
CHAD DINENNA: You're right,
[INAUDIBLE], there is a winner.
But you're the judges.
At the end of the day, on the last day, we have a pad of
paper, and I'm going to sit down with you.
And you're going to write down who you think rode the best--
your top three favorites and the best trick.
Someone that's going to leave a lasting impression on you in
the four days, three days that we're here together.
Part of it, just as much of it as it is all of us riding
together on the hill, it's the time that we spend
together like this.
At the end of the day, I just want you guys to be stoked on
what's here for you, and I want you all
to have a good time.
[APPLAUSE]
-Just like leg a season out.
We all deal with this and that, and that's why this
thing is so cool is just because we can
go up and just shred.