Seattle Downtown Throwdown Photo Recap

The first stop of the Downtown Throwdown took place in Seattle, Washington over the weekend, and it couldn't have been a more perfect day. Unusually sunny skies brought the crowds out to historic Pioneer Square to witness a brutal onslaught of jibbing chicanery by some of today's best rail riders. Over 25 contestants battled it out for a $5,000 first place prize and in these tough economic times, no one was holding anything back. Riders were running up the stairs after each make, bail or slam for the entire 2-hour jam session to make sure the judges saw everything they had to offer. With a judging panel that included Vans Team Riders Zac Marben and Darrell Mathes, along with Johnny Lazz, LNP and Sean Genovese, the competitors had to come correct. It seemed like just about every combination of frontside and backside, switch and regular, 180s and 270s got put down by somebody at some point, along with some front, back and rodeo flips thrown in for good measure. When it was all said and done, Brandon Hobush walked away with the win and $5000. For now, check out the photos below and stay tuned for a video coming soon...



Krush Kulesza's Snowboy Productions put down 8,000 pounds of shaved ice to turn Occidental Park into a snowboard park.



The Sacred Water Canoe Family blessed the course before the contest, and no body was seriously injured during the event... Coincidence?



Tons of people came out to watch the show.



The course featured a straight rail, a kinked box , a pole jam and a quarter pipe with a gap and big ass coping.



Vans Am Nick Pooch was throwin' down.



So was Nick Visconti.



The esteemed judges hard at work.



The Vans RV came all the way up from SoCal to bring anyone wearing Vans a bunch of free goodies.



The tents got set up with free stickers, hats, sunglasses, socks and more!



Now that's a sticker set.



Three happy campers.



The whole event had a festival atmosphere to it, with tents like Zumiez putting on games all day for kids to win free products.



SK8 Sesh outside the Vans Camper.



Those are some cool lookin' shades on that kid...



Some kids never grow up... and we love it.



Darrell and Zac doing their thing. For even more photos, check out our tumblr at vanssnow.tumblr.com and action shots from Laura Austin at snowboardermag.com.