It’s 50 degrees in February, but soon snowboarders will compete on the steps of the Capitol
Crowds of spectators will soon be at the Capitol building to watch snowboarders glide down rails for the Red Bull Heavy Metal snowboarding contest on Saturday.
But on a rainy Thursday afternoon, there were just about ten people getting ready. Despite the rain and temperatures in the 50s, the event plans to have 18 inches of snow.
To accomplish this, organizers haul green garbage bins full of artificial snow to the top of the Capitol steps.
“They’re very heavy, honestly, it takes like four of us to take a trash can all the way up the stairs,” said Myles Grote, the terrain park manager at Buck Hill in Burnsville.
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He’s helping build the course, which includes making 400 cubic yards of snow for trucks to haul to St. Paul between midnight and 6:30 a.m.
But he’s not sweating it.
“Really it’s just aesthetically that this winter is providing a difficult time, because it would be nice to see everything blanketed in snow. We would shovel off the stairs anyway because that's kinda how street snowing is anyway, so it really adds no extra danger to the athletes,” he said.
Over 30 snowboarders will compete.
If you go
The Red Bull Heavy Metal snowboarding contest takes place Saturday from 2-6 p.m. at the Capitol building in St. Paul. The event is free and open to the public.