Pipe Dreams 2023:The East Coast's Finest

Picture this: You've been sitting on your couch for the entirety of winter break doing nothing but practicing your basket weaving skills so that you can get back to school ready to show everyone your cool new skills but realize maybe those cool kids up in Burlington care more about skiing. Crazy story-- they do (but basket weaving is still pretty cool). On January 27th, UVM students packed outside the Davis Center to watch a bunch of people go down a hill and slide some metal at the Pipe Dreams Rail Jam.

The preparation for this one was quite different than the rail jam over on Trinity, the hill wasn't as steep, but the riders weren't going to let that stop them. That week, VT finally started getting snow and consistently cold temperatures, giving the SSC crew a lot less shoveling.

As always, the music was nothing short of elegant, with some ambassadors firing off big booty mixes and fart songs to boost the shoveling morale. The SSC crew also picked up a couple of new rails for this setup, a down-flat-down rail, and a tube. Combined with a canon rail and a barrel feature, the setup for Pipe Dreams was the best setup UVM has ever seen in a rail jam. During the setup, Red Bull came with their truck. Man, that's a cool truck. The ambassadors also built an igloo. Man, it was a cool igloo.

When it came time for the rail jam to start, the riders came out firing. The first thing I saw when I got there was a snowboarder fold himself in half on the DFD. Nothing like carnage to get the night started. This rail jam was different from the previous one. The riders had been practicing for the past month and got their skills dialed. Just in the days before, tons of the competitors had been skiing urban rails on campus. One of those kids skiing urban was Jack Lasewicz, the winner of the men's skiing. Let me tell ya- if you haven’t watched him before, the man can ski.

While you might think Pipe Dreams is equivalent to the XGames (which it is), some tomfoolery always occurs. We saw a rider go down the course on all the rails and do tricks on a pair of ski blades. Another rider skied down, eating a banana and drinking a red bull. The tricks were also being thrown around. On the cannon rail we saw multiple people throw 630s. Do spins, get paid. The barrel also had some riders getting inverted, mostly crashes, but flips are cool. The tube was well received by the riders, many of them doing tons of creative tricks. We saw some technical tricks on the DFD, from 360 swaps to k-feds.

The crowd showed up and kept the energy high, even starting a massive snowball fight. There was a bunch of free stuff from Ski the East and Black Diamond. Of course, the UVMSSC koozie was the best thing out there. Overall, the Pipe Dreams rail jam was a success. The East Coast's Finest once again proved that skiing is better than basket weaving.

Tom Statham ‘25

Edited by Ryan Harris ‘23