The crisp Arctic air deposited a healthy amount of flakes on Cascade peaks, but nowhere near the amount needed to put us back on track for the season. Nevertheless, news of incoming storms had Northwest riders breaking in their Sorels, re-waxing their Mervin boards and putting another coat of lacquer on their outerwear. Hype levels were off the charts. The hype was so great that Mount Baker was forced to open in spite of lack of snow. In fact, I am not even sure that they have snow. But they do have a bunch of stir-crazy NW snowboarders eager to fork over $50 for a lift ticket. So on Sunday, December 14, 2008, Mount Baker opened for the 2008-2009 season. I didn’t go. Instead, I woke up late from the vast depths of ridiculousness that transpired the night before. I had an incident with not one, but two kegs. Despite going big (for me anyway), I was awake at 8 am, calling homies to see if I could make snowboarding happen. Since the only person who answered the phone seemed to still be drunk, it wasn’t looking promising.
Slightly discouraged, I looked out the window and realized that driving to the mountain was actually unnecessary — there was a solid couple of inches of snow on the ground! Confident that I could make urban magic happen in the city, I opted to go back to sleep. When I finally got up, geared up and convinced my personal photographer to come with me (aka my 15 year old brother), it was about 10:30. Perfect time for some urban boardin’! I should clarify though. I have no interest in jibbing, bomb dropping or otherwise having your typical urban shred sesh. I was looking for serious soul boarding, maybe even some urban first descents.
First destination was my parents neighbor hood, but almost as soon as we got in the car, the phone rang. It was my formerly drunk friend Nate and I told him the plan.
“We have a stair set and a hill!” he said. And with that, we were on our way to pick up our posse. I told Nate we’d be there in a few minutes so to get ready, but when we arrived, I found him scrambling eggs for breakfast and drinking leftover keg beer. I was serious about getting the sweetest myspace shot ... hahah, but I figured I would be able to get more extreme with a good breakfast in me. As we ate, hungover people began emerging from all over, and pretty soon our crew was six deep and a dog.
With full stomachs, brand new gear and an empty mountain dew bottle full of keg beer, we finally started shredding in the street. Nate crushed the stair set, there was some warm up dancing and we even saw a hit and run. I decided to try a sweet stonewall drop, which not gonna lie, didn’t go so well. (Insert shot of bruised Knee) Finally, we all piled into my buddy’s van and headed off to get our shred on.
The first spot we ended up at was the elementry school behind Haggens. In my mind, there was a giant grassy hill next to the school, but as it turned out, the hill was covered in bushes and dropped off about 10 feet at the bottom. In the freezing cold and whipping wind, we trudged around the school, looking for another, more epic hill. We didn’t find the powder drifts I was hoping for, but we did find a perfect ollie-on ledge. Alex and Nate took turns riding a spot that has probably never been done on a snowboard before, and the rest of us stood around and froze. With a few shots in the bag, we decided My parents house was a better bet for truly epic shredding.
The roads we’re pretty trecherous, and we almost hit a dog trying to drive up the steep Alabama Hill to my parents. The scene at my parents house was pretty ridiculous. Cars abandoned everywhere, old people walking their poodles, and of course, tons of children with sleds all vied to ruin our session. After all, if they did it first, it wouldn’t really be a first descent anymore. The jib possibilities were endless though. Flat bars, rock drops and cement ledges were everywhere. Nate, who at this point was drunk again, was unstoppable, riding his snowboard while the rest of us walked (in our defense, he was the only one with an old board.)
After climbing the hill for awhile, we saw it. A slight gully wrapped through trees and there was even a bike trail that made for a sweet jump. This was it. My moment. I hurried up the hill, with Alex and our other friend Nate following behind. I claimed this one, and even though they managed to strap in before me, I was going to make it happen. The problem with riding on leaves covered with a dusting of snow is it’s hard to turn, stop, or really have any sort of control. It wasn’t going to stop me. IT WAS tIME to GEt EXtREME!!!! I pointed my snowboard towards the bottom and went for it. The snow was also very sticky, so it was a slow process at first, but i picked up speed and caught some out-of-control air off the jump. Stuck the landing, and as I rapidly approached the bottom, I realized there was no real way to stop. The edge of the road had other ideas though, and I jarred dramatically into it, ending my line. It wasn’t enough to kill the rush. I’d just had my first urban descent and it was a high I can’t possibly explain.
This day will undoubtedly go down as one of the best of my season, and only I (and Alex and Nate) can say we’ve shredded that line on Alabama Hill. !!!!!!
Wow. Insanity is awesome.
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