West Coast Sessions 2010

            In

early April or so, I along with my roommates, were invited to the annual West

Coast Sessions event at Timberline, OR. In the following weeks, Chris and

Parker decided to partake in other opportunities, so I was making the trip

solo. Alex Martini was also attending, and happened to be in Mammoth. The

weather was beautiful in Mammoth and the park was insane the few days prior to

the event. Martini and I decided to ski until the last day possible and drive

through the night up to Hood. In Oregon,

the gas stations are “Full-Serve”, so they close at night. Unfortunately we

were almost out of gas and the gas stations were closed, so we slept in front

of the pump until they opened the next morning.

            We

ended up rolling into the parking lot at around 10am, and it was full on

dumping. I made the wrong call, never being to Timberline before, and I brought

up the EP’s. Everyone else was having a pretty good day, just shralping around

and hitting rails, while I on the other hand was in the woods of the trails

scrounging for the few POW slashes I could find. The plan for the evening was

to hit the jump that was built in the Windell’s lane at sunset, however the

weather did not cooperate and it was postponed until day 2.

            Day

2 started out with the typical breakfast at the Windell’s camp, and then up to

the mountain early. The weather was nice for a few runs, and the Paintbrush

park was in prime form. As the morning rolled on the clouds rolled in again,

and it seemed like it was another bust of a day. In the afternoon, the crazy

up-gap-flat box was good to go, and Will Berman stepped up to the plate. The

feature was built right next to lift and for the last 2 days, the general

consensus was that it was crazy. Out of no where, Will and McChesney said on

the lift that they were going to speed check it. After a few runs of speed

checking and a lot of consideration, I rolled down to where the crowd was

gathered to let them know it was on.

            The

start-point was right off the lift, so after the news was relayed, Will came

flying over the knuckle above the feature in a full mini-tuck. The speed was

pretty intense, and because of it, Will almost jumped the first box completely.

Just tapping the first box, and landing on the flat……not cleanly to say the least.

Not to be conquered, it was back up to the top for another go. After a steezy

slide to switch, Will stomped the blind 4 out in front of almost all the riders

that had quit skiing due to weather. Again, the big jump session was postponed.

            Day

3 was the best day of the trip to that point, so morale was high in the

morning. The Big jump had a cat on it, and the plan was to session Paintbrush

until it was time to make the trip up top. After a short small park session,

and a long wait at the top of The Mile chair, the crew was on site. The inrun

was really long, and no one really knew where to start from. After chillin on

the knuckle for a while and not seeing anyone hit it; McChesney, Will, Sean

Jordan and myself decided to go send it. On the lift we saw someone, McKrae,

land on the landing. We didn’t see where he started though, so when we were

ready to drop in the general mindset was, “This seems good….right?” The four of

us Train’d in and all of us over shot the shit out of the jump. We all stomped

just fine in relatively soft snow, and the session was on. McKrae stepped up

with the first double, Sean Jordan sent a perfect switch misty 10, and

countless other tricks were documented on the warm up session. After a while

the clouds rolled in again, and the sunset shoot was postponed till the last

day. The night of day 3 included the typical antics of 20 skiers in one house,

along with a lot of skateboarding at BOB and all around Windell’s.

            Day

4 had the same schedule as the previous day, however everyone was prepared and

warmed up to the Windell’s jump. Countless doubles, rodeo 9’s, switch 10’s, and

more steezy 7’s than one would know what to do with were thrown in the all day

session. It was then back to Windell’s for a quick break, and then another trip

up to the hill to close out the weekend with the much anticipated sunset shoot.

            After

waiting for the Cats at the bottom of timberline for a while, and a few of the

crew dropping the roof, the second of two cats made it to the jump. The cat

ride up was full of laughs, and a bottle of classy white wine. By the time we

got to the in-run, it had gotten quite a bit colder and we were starting almost

half-way between where we had started the previous days. As the evening

continued, we only kept stepping down. A few people made the trip just to

hangout after the long day. The jump landing was never groomed, so riders soon

stopped hitting the jump because of the sketchy firm landing, and dwindling

light. The steeziest rodeos, cork 3’s, flat 3’s, and 7’s with every grab were

thrown as the light got darker and darker. Laps were fast, with a knotted rope

behind the cat. It seemed like every few jumps you would hear Napier yelling

from the knuckle, “the light is really good!”, then a few jumps later, “the

light is really really good!”, and so on. The last few hits on the jump were

really good, and the crew stopped, at what I think, was the perfect time.

            The

long leg burning lap back to the Timberline parking lot capped off an awesome

weekend skiing, with Brews in the parking lot, and the most festive of nights

back at Windell’s capped off the trip, before an early morning drive back to

Mammoth.