When was the last time you were in a room packed full of more than a thousand people, on their feet, cheering for a photo of a skier neck deep in snow? Or a patroller chucking a bomb over her shoulder? Me? Maybe never. Until last weekend.

In the online world, where a new-hotness helmet cam edit drops every 15 seconds, it’s easy to forget how powerful one photograph, or even a series of stills can be. If you needed to be reminded of that, last weekend’s Deep Winter Photo Challenge, put on by Arc’teryx and Whistler Blackcomb, might have been the ticket.