How cold is cold? Sorry Florida, cold is not 60. And no, Texas, freezing is not 50. Cold is when you fill a pool for a rail jam at 3:00 and it freezes over by 4. Cold is setting down a Monster can while you run the winch, only to have it turn in to a Monster Slushee in 10 minutes.

Cold was the 2009 Scion Open. The Scion Open has become a Midwest tradition unlike any other. It combines the finest snowboarders in the Midwest and some of the best rail riding wakeboarders in the region. The series was the brain child of Department Zero’s Fritz Heffinger and Scion’s John Stoltz. The event started as a single stop at Kansas City’s Snow Creek Ski Resort in 2007. The idea was pretty simple, deliver a quality grass roots competition with tons of awesome prizes donated by the world’s most awesome sponsors, including Verizon, Liquid Force, Monster, S.O.K.A, K.C. Watersports and most importantly, Scion.

The event has now expanded to three stops, the first at Snow Creek Ski Resort in Kansas City, the second at Hidden Valley Ski Resort in Saint Louis, and the finals at Kansas City’s Power and Light District.

The events at Snow Creek and Hidden Valley might be the only place where you will see wakeboarders go from snow, to water, to rail, to water, and back to snow (hopefully). If all goes well, the rider stays pretty much dry. If not, we are talking really cold.

Last year’s events featured weather in the 50’s for both events, and there seemed to be an abundance of riders willing to give it a go. This year, the mercury shrunk to around 18, and so did the list of willing riders. When it was all said and done, 4 brave riders took the challenge. The “lucky” riders were Saint Louis’s Kyle Woehler and Gabe Fowler, and KC’s Carter Collins and Ryan Sanders. Despite horrible conditions, all of the riders delivered.

A special thanks to the staff of Scion, Department Zero, Hidden Valley and Snow Creek for their commitment to action sports in the Midwest. For more information check out www.scionopen.com.