It was the New Zealand stop of the Burton Open series at Snowpark just outside Wanaka in 2008.

Notable moments included Ben Kilner being unable to compete as British Airways had lost his snowboard bag en route; hitchhiking in the dark at 7am and being picked up by all time female shredder Cheryl Mass; and loving the moment the sun finally came out as Kazuhiro Kokubo won the halfpipe competion.

Fast forward a few years and my enthusiasm for competitions has certainly wavered. You often sit around for days on end, get hoarded in and out of media zones and occassionally be baffled by the press photographer who's ready on the halfpipe deck with a 400mm lens which wouldn't look out of place taking photos of the moon.

I arrived in Denver last week for my season over in Breckenridge and knowing that the SIA show was in town i knew I'd find some friendly faces. Within an hour of arriving I found myself packed into an RV heading towards Aspen for arguably one of the biggest competitions of them all: the X-Games. The RV in question conatined an international crew consisting of American, Japanese, French and English making an eclectic mixture of personalities all with the same amount of love for the snow.

Aspen is a strange place. I guess I'd always had an idea in my head of what to expect from watching movies such as Dumb and Dumber. I expected woolen jumpers, D&G snowboards and women with small designer dogs surrounded by beautiful mountain ranges. I was shocked to find out that in reality it's just a rich town and an ugly ski hill full of contradictions. The part of the resort where the comp was on is little more than a hill, nothing like what I expected.

On to the competiton, and that was exactly what I had expected: completely over-the-top action for nearly a week. I joked that it was comparable to Disneyland on snow until someone in the media tent pointed out that Disney actually own ESPN making the X-Games just one big marketing plan for Disney... Ever seen a local band or DJ playing at the bottom of the hill? Yep they had that there in the form of 50 Cent, just your usual resort fare. Evening parties included night-time gondola rides with Mix Master Mike spinning his favourite tunes to an intimate crowd who made it past the bouncers... crazy stuff.

The antics on the snow were just as crazy with too many awesome performances to remember. If I had to choose though, I'd say standout perfomance has to come from Halldor Helgasson who single-handedly destroyed everything he touched. A perfect 100 in the Big Air and qualifying first in the slopestyle semis before not sticking his run in the final. This kid is insane. You should check out his site combined with his equally tallented brother www.helgasons.com. These guys have to be seen to be believed. Shaun White deserves a mention especially after taking the meanest looking slam in practice for the finals just to get straight back up and destroy the field. And what of Jenny Jones? Five minutes before the final her binding snapped but she delt with it, got her run down and took gold for the second year running. Great stuff for the UK scene.

Sitting here in Breckenridge and looking back, was the X Games all that? I've got to say i actually enjoyed it. Yes, there were a few things such as advert breaks (who stops competitions for adverts?!) that drove me mad but overall I had a great time. As for future competitions this season, we'll have to see but if I only have to visit one then let it be the X-Games... if only to watch the monoskier cross, one of the craziest sports I've ever seen.

You can keep up to date with my season over at www.timlloydphoto.com/blog or check up here for Document Snowboard. We still need some more snow here in Colorado but when it (finally) falls it should go off...