Urban First Descents

YoBeat Gets Urban During the Storm of the Century

So far this season, the YoBeat staff has managed to go snowboarding a few times, and never leave the parking lot. But I was determined to change that, as Sunday, December 14, the real hill, Mt. Hood Meadows finally opened. Unfortunately Nick left for Utah Saturday, and 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 unnessecary — there was a solid inch of snow on the ground! Confident that I could make journalist 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, 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 Mt. Tabor Park, 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 dicing potatoes for breakfast and drinking leftover keg beer. I was serious about getting the shot, 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 a cherry coke 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. Finally, we all piled into Tim Breault’s van and headed off to get our shred on.

The first spot we ended up at was the high school next to Glenhaven skatepark. 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. Tim 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 Mt. Tabor 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 streep street to the park. We decided it might be better to just park at the bottom and walk. The scene at Tabor was amazing. Cross country skiers, extreme mountain bikers, dudes with Sims from the early 90s 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 cat track that made for a sweet jump. This was it. My moment. I hurried up the hill, with Nate and our other friend Evan 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. I pointed my brand new 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 Evan and Nate) can say we’ve shredded that line in Mt. Tabor Park. If you really want to read about Meadows Opening day, and find out if Ahmon Stamps was there or not, check out this blog. They promised actual coverage. Now watch the video.

(Photos by Jared Souney)

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2530063&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1