Remember that place I talked about in my last post? Tryvann? Do you also remember how terrible that resort is? They forget to build jumps, erect boxes crooked, and, worst of all, have a habit of not grounding the end of boxes... Or is it best of all?
Here comes another story... Ready? Well, Tryvann gets lazy at the end of the season. When the top layer turns to slush and jumps shrink, parks need to be maintained obsessively. Wouldn't you know it, Tryvann doesn't agree. This is why the jumps that you couldn't clear earlier in the year aren't even worth using as roll-ins now and your own shovel becomes part of your ski kit. It's a shame, but I can not say it ever surprised me...
Now and then, the boxes manage to escape their graves and whatever I imagine lives inside that hollow space gets a chance to escape. The box becomes loose and teeters when you hit it, much like a seesaw. It's about this time of year that I start to give up hope for learning anything new the rest of the season and begin to fart around with the homies on the ruins of what was once shitty at best. It's the time when dares and games of SKATE are the most prevalent part of my day.
During one of these games of skate, I came up empty on my turn. I was under the gun and staring down a flat box. Six meters to the end and enough run-in and kicker left to under-rotate a 270 landing me half-way down the box. What to do... A ha! That was when I remembered the last run where we laughed at the unusual amount of teeter (or totter) in the box today. That was it! I could use this... I claimed my trick and kick pushed my ass off to be able to get just enough speed to jump straight up over the box just before the halfway point and stomp switch without having the box tip. Disaster to switch without tipping the box. Everyone else got a letter... CLAIM!
CONCLUSION (Skip here because I know you were too lazy to read all that):
Let's give some features some elbow room and let them break free of their snowy grooves! The insurance companies might not like it, but this gives a whole new dimension to the tricks we have become so bored of. Boxes suck. They're all the same and everything's been done on them. Give them a third dimension!
Once again, I don't have any pictures of teetering boxes at Tryvann... So here's another one of Walter Scott Wood tearing that godforsaken hill a new one.
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