Dan Treadway eyed the peppery drop suspiciously. “I’m not flailing off of that,” he stated. Photographer Reuben Krabbe tried to talk him into it: “It’s important to the show and it’s not that big… just pretend to crash?” Despite Reuben’s pleas, Treadway failed to flail—the snow just looked a little too sketchy. It was the third and final day of the Sixth Annual Deep Winter Photo Challenge at Whistler-Blackcomb, and this was indicative of the challenges faced by the six competitors: lower-than-average snowfall totals had made for sometimes difficult snow, but blue skies also meant plentiful light and sunset sessions—a definitively different milieu than the storm sessions of years past.

But, just when tired photogs traded viewfinders for editing bays, deep winter returned to the Coast Mountains: snow began to fall at 6pm Friday night and delivered a healthy dose of fresh to the beleaguered masses. As Mother Nature continued to blanket Whistler Village in a sea of white, a sold-out crowd of 1,200 satiated souls drifted into the Fairmont Chateau Whistler to take in the work of six and-selected contestants. Along with Krabbe, the youngest competitor ever at just 21, vying for the crown of King/Queen of the Storms were last year’s second-place finisher Robin O’Neill, Whistler up-and-comers Mason Mashon, Mark Gribbon and Jussi Grznar, and Utah lensman Steve Lloyd.

Although all photographers had just three days to shoot within the expansive confines of Whistler-Blackcomb, the shows were surprisingly diverse: from Krabbe’s story of injury and redemption (and Dave Treadway surviving a Hollywood huck of Air Jordan) to Grznar’s diverse juxtaposition of behind-the-scenes imagery and in-your-face action and O’Neill’s more intimate presentation of a few key characters, the shows were nothing short of inspiring.

It seemed that locals fared well with their knowledge of where to find good snow amongst a week-long dry spell and, although it was very, very tough to call, O’Neill ‘s riveting show (which you can watch below) claimed the $5,000 novelty check and the title of Queen of the Storms. A huge thanks to the crew at Whistler-Blackcomb, Arc’Teryx, and the photographers for their inspiration and hard work amongst a rare January dry spell. And, perhaps most importantly, thanks to Mother Nature for returning us to deep winter—we hope all the athletes and photogs are out getting theirs as La Niña is back with a vengeance.

Robin O’Neill - Deep Winter 2012 Winning Slideshow from Robin ONeill on Vimeo.