Slopestyle is based on terrain parks that are found at many winter resorts. X Games Slopestyle courses usually are comprised of between 6 and 8 feature sections broken down into 3-4 “jibs” (sometimes known as a rail garden) and 3-4 jumps. Jibs are rails, boxes, cannons and other artificial obstacles designed to slide and trick onto/out of.

X Games jumps are huge, usually covering 55 to 70 feet in distance from takeoff to knuckle, which means athletes sometimes travel around 90 feet from takeoff to a jump’s landing’s sweetspot.

The X Games Big Air course is a single jump that lives up to its name -- the booter is always one of the largest jumps athletes will face all season.

At X Games Aspen 2023, competitors began on a scaffold drop-in ramp 50 feet above the snowpack. The drop-in was followed by a long run-in to a 24-foot-wide jump. The takeoff launched them 70 feet to the 60-foot-wide landing’s knuckle, or more than 80 feet to the landing’s sweetspot.

Depending on the year, X Games Big Air competitors take 4-6 attempts, with their best two jumps comprising their total score. Each trick/jump is judged on a 0-50 scale, so an athlete’s best possible Big Air score is 100.

Known as Half Pipe at the first three X Games events, the discipline’s name was changed to SuperPipe for X Games Mount Snow 2000 to reflect its super growth.

Sometimes called the U-ditch or frozen taco, SuperPipe is a long, U-shaped course with steep walls and tightly compacted snow -- competition pipes are rock hard to allow competitors better launch and more consistent takeoffs and landings.

The X Games Aspen 2023 SuperPipe was 590 feet long, 70 feet wide and had an 18-degree pitch. While the length and width can change a little from year to year, a pipe isn’t super unless its walls are 22 feet high.

Athletes traverse back and forth across the pipe, throwing tricks above the pipe’s “deck.” Competitors can soar more than 20 feet above the deck, or around 45 feet above the pipe’s flatbottom. That’s more than 4 stories high! Depending on the angle of their approach and the distance traveled down the pipe with each trick, SuperPipe competitors usually log between 4-6 tricks in a full run.

Slopestyle, Big Air and SuperPipe/Half Pipe all were part of the first X Games winter event in 1997. Knuckle Huck is the new kid on the block -- Snowboard Knuckle Huck was added for X Games Aspen 2020. Ski Knuckle Huck joined in 2021. Women’s classes will be part of the discipline for the first time at Aspen 2024.

A “knuckle” is the knoll at the top of a transition; it’s the spot where one angled (or even relatively flat) surface meets a suddenly much steeper decline. Skiers and snowboarders “pop” off the knuckle and land down the transition. Think of it as a mellower way to get airborne than an intimidating jump. Every snowsports resort is filled with knuckles, and it’s often where you’ll see adventurous sliders hucking themselves. Thus, Knuckle Huck.

X Games Knuckle Huck is where personal expression meets skill. Athletes unveil unique, creative tricks; it’s not just about who spins the most (although that can help, too).