The park’s main kicker got a proper seeing to this morning, with the Nike pros and invited Ams throwing down. Check the recap, the video highlights from the first few days here, plus a gallery of some of the hammers that have been thrown so far. Voting for the Ams’ best line is now open, so check them bang bangs…

After the Ams had firmly made their mark on this park of monstrous proportions on the first day (the edits of their lines are live now for you to vote on – the top three go through to be judged by the Nike team on Saturday – peep them on www.nikechosensessions.com and hype your favourite) and the skate-styled madness of yesterday’s bowl session, today saw the 27m length of Montafon snow opened up for a good old fashioned seeing to and a bit of man-the-hell-upping from Jamie Nicholls.

We thought we were in for a down day here at the Nike Chosen Sessions, but thankfully the greybird that greeted us as we peered through our window this morning never developed into the storm the forecast’s been threatening, and was even peppered by patches of sunshine. Nike TM Jon Weaver had mustered his troops for an early start and by the time we hitched a cat ride to the park the mega booter session was just about to go down.

Although there were several holdups as we waited for the clouds to pass, the riders were on point to fire off this 27m beast for the lenses of the assembled media each time the light was good. Once again, the Ams were impressing, with Swissman Markus Mathis really turning heads. Word on the street is that the kid’s got no sponsors, which is baffling seeing as he was dialling proper back 10 doubles while mixing in some überpoked back 5s and 7s.

http://mpora.com/videos/k6f7g1s9n

Of course, the pros have their contracts for good reason and they didn’t disappoint either. Peetu once again demonstrated his unprecedented mastery of pop by going consistently bigger than anyone else, firing the little ball of muscle he calls his body through monster back 7s and switch back 7s – the highest point of his jumps is often past knuckle. Insane. Our German mate Ethan Morgan was killing the front 5s and front 7 Japans while France’s finest, Gerome Mathieu, put down a double 12 after a few pops. We’ve also discovered Jan Scherrer is a beast – switch back 10s that look like back 7s they’re that big and slow? No biggie for this boy. Not to be outdone by all this male swordery, Spencer O’Brien – our new favourite snowboarder – was sending back 3s, back 5s and megastyled front 3s to the moon. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

We’d been giving Jamie Nicholls grief all morning about not hitting the jump. He’d been making excuse after excuse but we knew it was the fear – this is, after all, one intimidating hunk of snow – but then he showed how his brain works in mysterious ways by claiming he wanted to hit the rail on top of the wallride construction further up the park. The thing has serious consequences if you get it wrong, but after a couple of testers and a kicker reshape he gangster styled a couple of boardslides to 7m bombdrop like it was a walk in the park. Crazy lad.

That was a wrap for the day and the call is the weather will actually shut us down tomorrow, which we’re sure the riders who were lapping the kicker will appreciate – most are looking a little beat. We’ll keep you informed with the haps…