In the end, outmaneuvering Mother Nature was the key to landing atop the podium, as two veteran boarders claimed their first X Games gold medals in this stylistic discipline.

Peter Line and Tara Dakides managed to stay smooth in the tough conditions to win the Slopestyle competition, keeping Kevin Jones and Barrett Christy in the silver-medal slots for a second year.

Dakides, 23, had more than just the weather to overcome. The goofy-footed Californian injured her back during Friday's Boarder X competition and was in obvious pain after each of her three runs.

	Peter Line survived a brutal whiteout to take home the Slopestyle gold.

"I really wanted to do this event, so I just stretched out good and tried to just ignore the pain," Dakides said. "It threw me off a little bit, but I don't feel the pain when I'm going down the run."

After disappointing performances in the Halfpipe and Boarder X competitions, Dakides was excited to win Slopestyle, one of her favorite events.

"I ride park, mostly, and I love handrails," she said. "(Course designer Chris Gunnerson) did a killer job out here."

Visibility was even worse by the time the men hit the mountain, and the fresh snow seriously affected their ability to keep up enough speed to hit all the jumps.

"I tried not to fall so that I wouldn't go too slow, so I could make all the jumps," gold medalist Line said. "The main key to doing well here was making sure you had enough speed."

The conditions were so poor that Line risked his first-place standing when he struggled on his third run and rode off the course.

"There was a lot more snow on my final run," Line said. "I was getting tired."

That miss set up a dramatic finish, with only Kevin Jones remaining -- then sitting in third place. Line stepped away from the crowd to watch Jones' performance on the big screen.

Jones finished his already strong day with a 900, and Line gave him a friendly tackle at the finish line.

"I thought he won. It was a clean run," Line said of Jones. "I can't see my run, so I don't really know how I did. But his run was super good."

But when Jones' score flashed on the screen, Line could breathe a sigh of relief: He had held onto his lead, despite his round-three mishap.

"I'm surprised I won, for sure. There were so many good riders here, and everyone was going off," Line said. "It's just really a matter of opinion for the judges who's on it and who's not. I got kind of lucky."

Another surprised medalist was 27-year-old Jimmy Halopoff, who won the 1997 Winter X Big Air contest but hasn't been much of a contender since then because of injuries.

"It feels great. I'm stoked. I'm really happy right now," Halopoff said. "It's been two years. ... It's been hard to fight the injuries."