Duck, sucka. The Grenade Games are coming to this year’s World Ski and Snowboard Festival. As action-sports photographer—and charter member of Whistler’s snowboard scene—Dano Pendygrasse put it, the Grenade Games are pure grassroots, “an antifestival kind of event”.

Now in its 14th year, the World Ski and Snowboard Festival long ago established itself as the largest winter sports and cultural event in North America. With longevity comes the challenge of reinvention; in order to remain the freshest egg in the basket, the WSSF has constantly redefined its manifesto. In a tip of the helmet to founder Doug Perry, current festival director Sue Eckersley acknowledged that Perry “broke all the conventional rules in 1995 when he gave athletes what they wanted: a festival designed by skiers for skiers”.

That’s exactly how Pendygrasse, a self-dubbed “old dog on the Whistler scene”, outlined the impetus behind the Grenade Games to the Georgia Straight. The brainchild of California rider Danny Kass, a silver medallist at two Winter Olympic half-pipe competitions, the previous four editions have been one-day affairs. This year, with backing from Monster Energy poobah Nelson Phillips, the games will be spread over five days in the heart of the WSSF’s 10-day run. “Nelson watched the decline of snowboarding during previous festivals,” Pendygrasse said. “Like me, he was concerned the festival was losing touch with its roots.”

Eckersley, who has been at the helm of the WSSF since Perry’s departure in 2007, agreed with Pendygrasse’s assessment. “Eight years ago at the festival, [snowboard manufacturer] Sims put up a quarter-million dollars in prize money and attracted the world’s best riders. Those deep pockets are no longer around. The Grenade Games purse is not going up, but, like the skiers, this is very much by snowboarders, for snowboarders. Danny Kass made it not only a friends-invite event but more inclusive as well. Monster has graciously stepped in to put a shine back on this aspect of the festival. The fact is, the top athletes were still coming to the festival but hadn’t been participating. Being here was more of a ”˜bro’ thing.”

Not this year. As Pendygrasse sees it, the Grenade Games are “pure democracy, a bunch of corny events where everyone who shows up takes part”. In addition to a field of elite invited athletes, 100 riders out of 300 to 400 who apply will be picked at random to take part in several contests, including the Superpipe. When it comes to the Poker Run, the sky’s nearly the limit. “We capped the field at 300 for that one,” Pendygrasse said. This daylong challenge will see riders scouring the slopes to collect a playing card at each of four poker tables hidden on the runs of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains. Conveniently, travelling between the mountains is now as simple as hopping aboard the new Peak 2 Peak gondola. At the end of the day, riders pick up a fifth card in the Longhorn Saloon. The best eight hands then gather for a round of Texas Hold ’em for prizes and glory.

Nightfall at the festival ushers in a medley of arts-related activities, including the pinnacle event, the Pro Photographer Showdown. Six action-sports photographers gather to individually screen nine-minute selections of their images set to music. Two Vancouver shooters, Jordan Manley and Scott Pommier, are in the running. This is Manley’s first shot at the $10,000 top prize. When reached at home on the North Shore, the 24-year-old told the Straight that the subjects of his work are mostly talented friends with whom he grew up adventuring on Mount Seymour. “I picked up a camera eight years ago and went pro in 2006, shooting mountain biking and skiing. My long-term dream has always been to be in the Showdown. The level of competition is so high that I was surprised and happy to be selected.” Images from his travels over the past year through South America, Antarctica, the Alps, and B.C. infuse his presentation.

Pommier admits that his show, composed mainly of skateboarding and motorcycle images, will probably make him the odd man out. When reached in Los Angeles, the 31-year-old, who is making his second appearance in the Showdown, admitted he wrestled with whether or not to include his motorcycle images. “It feels like a fit,” Pommier said. “Shooting motorcycles is a big part of how my photography has developed over the past two years. One informs the other, the same as when I shoot skateboarding. The way you work as a photographer is constantly changing. I’ve now gone back to shooting 35-millimetre film. My selection for the festival only includes two digital images.” In the same breath, he said he doesn’t think of himself as “a vast, epic photo outdoor guy who captures the majesty of the weather. My work is more intimate, rawer.”

This matches Eckersley’s vision. “We don’t want to be an X Games or a World Cup. We want to be who we are, a really good gathering at the end of the season that celebrates everything there is on mountain culture and the people who live it.”

Access: For information on the World Ski and Snowboard Festival, including the Grenade Games (which run from April 21 to 25) and the Pro Photographer Showdown (April 23), visit www.wssf.com/. To view a selection of Manley and Pommier’s images, visit www.jordanmanley.com/ and www.scottpommier.com/.