The next generation of top freeskiers has converged on Mount Hood for West Coast Session 8, and the action in the Timberline parks has been extreme.

Hood-based freeskier, writer and photographer Ethan Stone (pictured below with his girlfriend Anja Reuter) organized the first West Coast Session when he was a 22-year-old college student, and the event has blossomed into a massive congregation of up-and-coming freestyle talent.

“We try to find the skiers who are going to be big in three years,” Stone said the other day while enjoying the rail show on Paintbrush. “And after they get big, they keep coming back, and that makes more kids want to be here.”

Session regulars include Olympic medalists Joss Christensen and Nick Goepper and Oregon freeskiing superstars Sammy Carlson and Sage Cattabriga-Alosa.

The West Coast Session hooks up teams of high-level skiers with top photographers and videographers competing for the People’s Choice award for best fan-voted video edit. Last year’s winning video was shot by Shane McFalls and Jeffrey Kohnstamm (the nephew of the president of the company that runs Timberline Lodge), featuring the skiing of Rob Heule, Jeff Curry, Jake Doan, Nicky Keefer, Kieran McVeigh, John Kutcher, Kristie Bievert and Will Wesson.

Difficult weather and poor visibility didn’t stop the fun at this year’s session. Skiers feasted on hot dogs, enjoyed a Best Gaper fashion show with a golden shotski awarded to the winner, partied down for Cinco de Mayo and shredded some outstanding park features built by Timberline Parks Manager Brian Stanford and his crew. The weather cleared Wednesday for a killer air session on some enormous jumps built specially for the event.

Here is Charlie Lasser making good use of an up-rail on Paintbrush (photo by Alex O’Brien):

Here’s French skier Julien Eustache, one of several top European skiers visiting Oregon for West Coast Session, with a nice black-and-white pic from Jamie Walter:

This image is from West Coast Session organizer Ethan Stone:

To check out video from the first two days of West Coast Session 8, click here.

To check out video from Jeffrey Kohnstamm from big-air Day Three featuring Olympic slopestyle champion Joss Christensen, click here. That’s an 85-foot booter they’re soaring off, which helps explain how they manage to make triples look routine.

One final image, the sunset shot from Wednesday’s action, by Rocky Maloney:

Last modified: May 7, 2014