For one glorious day in San Francisco, "Going skiing in the Marina" wasn't a euphemism on Craigslist. Serene blue skies and scorching summer weather made for fantastic conditions on the man-made run down Fillmore street from Broadway to Green. Of course, we were late, as it took us an hour and a half to make it from Market and 4th (we're blaming the cuts in Muni service -- we haven't been on time to anything all week). But there was still plenty of high-flying action to witness.

SFist, of course, has been behind this thing all along -- angry society brides and monks be damned. We also supported Mike Lin's efforts to bring it to Potrero, but we have to admit, you really couldn't have picked a better spot. The view from the top of the hill, with the Bay and Tiburon off in the distance, was f**king spectacular. The heat made the manufactured 'snow' (really shaved ice) something like you would expect on a sunny day at Tahoe -- what we like to call 'slush on packed ice.'

After the jump: Biffs, Frank Chu and a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday.

Fantastic photos by Todd Lappin. More photos from bigempty and Flickr tagged with icerair.

The crowd was your basic mix of preppies, many of whom looked like they were shirking work (including a certain mayor), the occassional surprisingly-clean hippy and lots of happy families. The CBS 5 News Chopper hovering over Fillmore was making a lot more noise than any of the loudspeakers. But of course, where the news choppers and vans go, so goes Frank Chu, whom we saw leaving the festivities as we worked our way up the slope from Fillmore and Green.

The best place to watch the action was probably on the roofs and balconies of the adjacent buildings -- drunken revellers were tossing frisbies from rooftop to rooftop. The actual jump was a rather forboding chasm -- we assume because they had to keep at least one lane of Vallejo open for emergency vehicles. But of the ten jumps we saw, everyone made it over, though one snowboarder just barely. Our favorite aerial was a snowboarder who went up maybe 15 feet, inverted, spread his arms like a swan dive, and then flipped around to make a clean landing. Seven of the other acrobats weren't so lucky.

Jonny himself capped the festivites with the final run of the day, and while he didn't pull off his trademark 'Dinner Roll,' he did save himself from a flubbed landing, and made it look easy. He was even more nonchalant as he hockey-stopped, popped his skis, pulled them into the camera frame in one fluid motion and began giving an interview to a local TV crew. Afterwards, he walked down the line of fans along the bottom of the course, giving high-fives and autographs. "Show us your boobs, Jonny!" shouted one excited lady. Sadly, she left disappointed. But a larger contingent broke into song, happy to be invited to the coolest birthday party that may have ever been held in San Francisco.