When this year's all-snowboarding super competition, the Burton US Open (February 25 through March 2), flies back into Vail for another year of action at Golden Peak on Vail Mountain, it brings some notable names with it. There's Olympic gold medalist and superpipe phenom Chloe Kim, fellow Olympic gold medalist and slopestyle queen Jamie Anderson, Olympic gold medalist Red Gerard (who happens to hail from Silverthorne, just over Vail Pass), along with a venerable list of snowboarding's most elite athletes (like Canada's Mark McMorris, Anna Gasser of Austria, Australian Scotty James, and Eagle County's very own Olympian from the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang, Jake Pates—just to name a few). 

New to this year's list of attendees to the Burton US Open? Greensky Bluegrass—a Michigan-born, five-piece bluegrass ensemble that's played for sold out crowds at Red Rocks—set to take over the stage at Solaris in Vail Village on Thursday night (February 28) after Vermont-based rockers The Welterweights open the show at 6 p.m. The best part? The show's free—as are performances at the Solaris stage by Lowell Thompson & Bob Wagner and Rayland Baxter (Wednesday, February 27, 6 p.m.), JUPTR and Khruangbin (Friday, March 1, 6 p.m.), and the Tune-Yards and Turkuaz (Saturday, March 2, 6 p.m.), with afterparties going down each night at Vail Village's late-night music haunt, Shakedown Bar, atop Bridge Street. Then there's the blowout bash at Dobson Ice Arena (Saturday, March 2, 9:30 p.m. to 1 a.m.), when DJ Cre8, DJ Byte, Eskei83 spin the beats for a late-night dance party of athletes and US Open-goers (also free to the public, just pick up tickets at either the Vail Village or Lionshead Village Burton locations during the week of competition).

 You can catch the riders hitting the halfpipe and the rail and jump features on Golden Peak for training on Monday, February 25 (10 a.m. and 1 p.m.), and check out the next generation of Olympians at the Junior Jam Halfpipe competition (Tuesday, February 26, 10 a.m.), when the world's top halfpipe snowboarders under the age of 14 throw down in the super-sized pipe. The real competition kicks off on Wednesday (February 27), though, for the slopestyle semi-finals (the women's event is at 10 a.m., the men's event begins at 12:30 p.m.), followed by halfpipe semi-finals on Thursday (February 28, women's at 10 a.m., men's at 12:30 p.m.). If you make it to Golden Peak for one thing, however, make it the finals—either for slopestyle, when Burton crowns its newest King and Queen of the jumbo-sized rail and jump line (Friday, March 1, women's final at 11 a.m., men's final at 2 p.m.), or the final throw-down in the halfpipe on Saturday (March 2, women's final at 11 a.m., men's competition at 2 p.m.). Our only advice? Claim your spot in the spectating area early, as the world's best often attract a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. events.burton.com