Park_Days

A Day at the Park The steam of the hot coffee floating up the nostrils in the Smokey car, melting the frost off the windows. Car packed tight, barley fitting four men with all the gear, just waiting until our arrival upon the park. As we take the left onto the main street, everyone looks up to see the conditions at the top of the mountain hoping that the park will be empty in the morning. You got to get up early to take advantage of the park before those dumb skiers come and ruin it during the day. The parks not made for them and it never will be. First run to the top just to get in the riding zone, stretching out and spinning around, just feeling great. Now it’s time to glide on over the crystal shinning snow, under the gates and into the park. Looking down at all the jumps, rails and boxes planning out a run, as the wind blows some snow into the air off the trees like a cloud from the snow made the night before. The flakes sparkle as the sun rays gleam off of them like diamonds. Fresh orange paint outlines the edges of the jumps as we drop in for an awesome ride, hitting the first jump flying twenty-five feet in the air feeling weightless, like nothing could stop you. No trick is pulled off the first jump, just feeling the air is what you need. Landing more gracefully than a plane hits the runway, barley just skimming the snow before its time to go back up the next one. Crouching down anticipating the edge, springing up in the air as my body twist and twist around and round, locating the ground, evening my board and body and lands just as flawless as the last one. As I continue on, I decide to skip the next jump and throw out a backside “3” onto the S-box just hoping I can make it to the end of the twenty foot steel bars and plastic plates, but, slides off just feet before the end, disappointed in not making it but still a good transition into the next event, flying off the top of the jump pulling a simple grab just trying to maintain speed for the twenty-two foot wall in which I’m about to head straight up. As I start to go up it just feels as the ground has came with me and I’m still flat on the ground but within seconds I am flying ten feet above the wall looking for the edge in which to come cruising down. The nose of my board barley makes it to the ramp as my back foot does not follow, I feel the impact of my foot hitting the top of the wall, it had felt like jumping off a cliff onto a concrete slap wearing shoes with no sole. My body flips over front ways as my head comes crashing straight into the ground, my arms flying into the air like I was trying to reach the sun. Friends of mine laughing and the nasty spill I had just taken, but this time my knee really hurt, it had become swollen but that was not going to stop an ambitious rider from riding the park for the rest of the day. Buttering down the rest of the way until the chair lifts, trying not to put pressure on my knee, as we ride the frosty snow covered chair back to the top of the park. We continue riding the park until lunch time were you have to wait in line to go off a jump because there are so many people, that is when we grab lunch and head to the top, taking the trail all the way to the left were the is easy access to the woods, we wait on the side until there is an opportunity to jump in the woods and go find our hut that we had built during a rail jam in the fail. We had found that some friends had already made it to the hut and now it was time to party until we felt like riding again. This is how the majority of our Saturdays are spent in the winter time at our local park.