So, the guys down at Summit must have realized how much Wild Mountain’s King of the Hill Shop Wars sucked, especially for skiers, because they ripped the idea off pretty hard to create Crew Wars. Shop Wars let us [Team Ski Hut] take two runs as a team per round and there were absolutely NO prizes to be had for us, the winners, or swag to throw out for any of the competitors. Us skiers sat around for two hours while snowboarders lapped the course in a jam format that we definitely didn’t get. Lame.

Summit’s shop team was conspicuously absent at Shop Wars, not that they missed out on anything. Instead, they put on a Star Wars themed comp open to ski crews, snowboard crews, and even mixed crews. 15 crews were registered, and a quick number crunch told us that we’d be up against 80 or more other people.

Practice was absolutely nuts with every crew trying to get hits in before the first heat. The action was slimmed down a bit with four crews taking the backyard park at a time in 20 minute heats. We took Team Tinga’s Hats all the way to the third and final round, going up against the snowboard crew from our first round heat the qualified alongside us.

After an indecisive final, they made us hike up for a final hit to decide the winner. Basically, we could have taken one run instead of going balls out the whole night, awesome! In the spirit of X Games, someone decided to implement an even more indecisive method of judging than txt to vote. The crowd cheered and yelled in a loudness match to decide the winner, rap battle style, until we were declared the winners.

I’ve seen blood drawn over skate decks thrown out in product tosses. I thought it was pure insanity to throw out a snowboard AND a pair of skis. Needless to say, it was messy. Summit threw another great event in their backyard park, fun times and excessive amounts of RedBull were had by all.

We walked away with a big backpack full of stuff and a lightsaber that Summit reportedly spent $150 on on eBay. It makes cool noises and stuff.