Courtesy of tailgatealaska.comCome for the contest, stay for the pow. Word is it's deep this year.

After years of watching TB movies and hiking lines at my local hill, all I wanted to do was move to Alaska and go to Valdez for King of the Hill.

So when I finished high school, that's what I did. And as soon as I got there, they canned the frigging contest.

It was okay, though. The Chugach range didn't go anywhere. And the first time I strapped in at the top of a peak on Thompson Pass, looking out over Prince William Sound, with 4,000 vertical and five feet of fresh beneath me, I swear the world stopped spinning. All that mattered was those mountains.

Ten years later, King of the Hill is back. It makes its triumphant return to Valdez, as part of Tailgate Alaska, on April 3. A decade may have gone by, but there will be no venue change, no MegaPipe, no triple-doubles, no energy drinks at the bottom, no MGMT, no non-functional suspenders and (likely) no tee-skirts. I caught up with Mark Sullivan (Tailgate Alaska founder, former editor of Snowboarder Mag, founder of Snowboard Mag) Wednesday to find out what will be.

ESPN.com: So, it's been a while ...
Mark Sullivan: It's had a long hiatus, but I've been talking to Nick [Perata] about it for years. The problem was always pulling off the old format -- the re-launch of a three-day heli event. It was impossible to find sponsors to handle that. So we kinda shaved the format a bit, modified it to be more in line with current freestyle snowboarding and made it easier to pull off.

No more downhill and extreme days, then?
We thought maybe we should bring back the original format, but not this year. There will be no downhill or extreme day. The way this event is set up on Bro Bowl and Skatepark, is kind of like an extreme day and a freestyle day wrapped up into one. But [it's] all sled accessed. We may use heli's for filming, but that's one of the benefits of being on Thompson Pass -- everything is right there. The tops of the courses are five minutes by heli, 10 minutes by sled.

What's the competition format going to be?
[Riders will get] two runs down Bro Bowl, an extreme-ish area with steeper, exposed rocks, cliffs, chutes, terrain features, half-mile long big mountain curtains -- 1,500 vertical feet. Then [they'll go] over to Skatepark [for one run on] 4,000 feet of natural halfpipe, shark fins, banks and features littered all over.

Will Axel Pauporté and Karleen Jeffery be there to defend their crowns?
Karleen I believe will be here. Axel will not. Steve Klassen may be coming to hand off the crown and sword but yeah, that was a consideration. We wanted to have them here.

What drew you, personally, to Valdez?
King of the Hill. I came up for the contest and just kept coming -- never looked back. After traveling in the media for so many years and being a dedicated snowboarder, it connected with me. It had all the best snow conditions, the best mountains, the best access, everything that I was looking for in one place at one time. I've been coming back since the '90s. Then three years ago I started doing the Tailgate and that grew kind of rapidly. Now it's like, all hands on deck, everyone, we got a show to run.

Courtesy of tailgatealaska.comYou don't have to heli to get yours at Thompson Pass. Doublers welcome.

How is the KOTH revival a good addition to the aesthetic of Tailgate Alaska?
It seems like it could be the rebirth of the Valdez scene. We have amazing riders from all over the world coming to it. There's always been this diehard following of people coming up here, but with the exposure of people coming this year from Europe -- we have 10 nations represented -- that's pretty cool. Guys like Eric Themel and Martin Cernik want to fly over to compete and then guys like Travis Rice want to do it, too. It's a testament to the fact that the name maybe lived on or that they want to see some big mountain freestyle/freeride comps in powder conditions.

How did you pick the 32 men and 8 women invitees?
Based on the response, it might have to be expanded a bit, but it'll be a max total of 50. When Eric Themel writes you from France and says, 'Hey I want to buy a plane ticket today and come to compete. Can I compete?' I say, 'Yes, you can compete, sir.' Vera Janssen and Anne-Flore will be here, too.

How do you feel the competitive landscape has most changed since the last KOTH?
[It's a] totally different animal. Last time this happened was 1999 and people were still scratching their heads over the Olympics at that point. The X Games had gained some momentum, but it hadn't become this corporate marketing machine yet. In general, snowboarding went a lot more big-time in terms of non-endemic sponsors. KOTH is a challenge for the athletes and not for the sponsors. We're just trying to do what's best for the sport and do what the athletes are going to enjoy the most [while] challenging them with the best conditions -- not with the worst conditions.

How's the snow this year?
Amazing. I've never seen this much snow. We had to carve a tunnel through the snow bank to get in. There's a 20-foot rim of snow banks around the parking lot. It was sunny for the last week and it started snowing two days ago, so the reset button should be pushed next time it goes clear.

With annual filming missions to AK now standard among film crews and more freeride contests popping up, big mountain riding is becoming more of a discipline than a once in a lifetime experience. Do you feel the novelty is wearing off?
I'm not trying to stage KOTH as an extreme contest, per se. It's more to test all the skills of the riders. I do see the popularity of that rising, but KOTH is unique in that it's in these mountains and these mountains are what make it different from any other contest. There still isn't a ton of money or interest behind it. It's not like the X Games -- you don't have Visa or Mountain Dew throwing millions of dollars into big mountain riding in general. It could be considered a discipline, but I wouldn't put it in the same category as slopestyle or pipe.

Courtesy of tailgatealaska.comYou can almost see the Sponsor Village. Yeah right. King of the Hill ain't that kind of contest.

Which of today's contest riders do you think will be able to hang?
It's been intentional to pit these people who never compete against each other. This new and unique format and terrain takes four generations of riders, your Kevin Joneses and your Shawn Farmers and Mikey Basiches -- the guys who have been there and done that and have tons of experience in the mountains, [which may] play to an advantage when it comes to line selection or whatever; then you have your established current pros -- Travis Rice and Mark Landvik; then your new and upcoming guys -- your Scotty Lagos and Aaron Robinsons -- just coming out on the big mountain tour; then you have these young up-and-coming guys in their late teens or early twenties like Adam Dowell and Andy Bergin Sperry -- this whole list of next generation riders who are cutting their teeth -- competing against these legends. So, it'll be interesting to see how boardercrossers fare against the pros -- the whole U.S. boardercross team is coming -- because I don't know who's going to win.

For events in general, the more predictable the outcome, the better it is for the producers. They can focus in on the athletes, they can have some confidence, like at the Olympics, all the Shaun White coverage was intentional and the payoff was there for NBC. Here, there are favorites, but that doesn't mean Travis Rice is a shoe-in to win. Seth Wescott could easily do better. Or Mikey Basich. Or a young charger. One of the coolest things is that I really have no idea who's going to do well.

That was kind of the goal: to make it accessible to people and show them that it's not just this thing that you dream about and see in movies -- it's an experience you can have yourself.

That was kind of the goal: to make it accessible to people and show them that it's not just this thing that you dream about and see in movies -- it's an experience you can have yourself. The Tailgate part was set up so anyone could come up and be a part of that and challenge themselves in these mountains. The contest came about because these mountains are regarded so highly by the athletes. There's a demand to crown the champion. Athletes are naturally competitive and it's a natural place to want to have a contest.

KOTH aside, if anyone wants to come up, what's the access like? We have Big Mountain Taxi running people up on sled laps. It's the Valdez of yore, because it's affordable. There are sled rentals and a heli operation right at our base camp, so depending on your budget, you'll find a way to get up into those hills. You'll find people with experience to get up into those hills with, too, because that's also important -- to be responsible. We have daily snow science classes, too. We already have people showing up, they're dug into the snow banks or snow caves. People were literally waiting for us to arrive, and we got here a week early.

Courtesy of tailgatealaska.comThis could be you....and a buddy. With a day of heli-boarding going for about $750 bucks, it really could be. All you gotta do is get to Valdez.