THE SPOT | STEFAN "TACO" ALVAREZ

Fuck this rail. I think someone had tried it before—because there's a seperated section mid-way through it with some worn-out bondo in there, but I had never seen it before. We were scheming in the area, and the Mt. Mtn. homies blessed us with a pin. D-mo [Derek Molinski] ended up cracking a rib on it so they asked if we wanted it. Respect!

We pulled up early in the AM to start building. Toronto had so much snow we easily made a snow drop-in and a quick lip. The local toboggan gang started blasting us with, "What are you doing?" type questions. It was an awkward run-up. Quick drop and pop while ducking through an opening in the fence. But the sketchiest thing was the separation in the rail. Your edge fits perfectly inside it. So I had to lift my toes aggressively to make it through. The break is on the flat after the long down, about four to six inches past the kink, so you have to pump the kink early or you're catching your edge. The battle went as battles do, more and more kids started showing up. Their yelling as I was rolling into this thing was messing with my psyche. Austin Johnson always says, "Eyes on the prize," and I really heard his voice in my head telling me to chill at this one. After 100-plus tries and no toe edge left on half my board, I finally made it through the whole thing. I wasn't too stoked about how I rode the last couple of kinks, so I tried to clean it up. I had a sketchy attempt and caught, flipped, almost hitting the back of my neck on the corner of a stair. It was time to call it. It still bugs me that I couldn't ride it the way I wanted to. It's funny battling a rail and then battling your mind after the fact. I'll smoke to that. 

Mad love to all the homies who were there to help out. You can see the clip in the new King Snow video.