Pretty girls, big mountains, and ramps
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Our first quest together was to search for some powder in the trees. It was
pretty warm and sunny on the Eastern range of the Rockies that weekend so
the snow was pretty chunky. We had more fun, as the day went on, getting
speed and air on the trails. It was my first day out this season so I didn't
mind the mediocre conditions (by Colorado standards). There was certainly
no shortage of people in the lift lines. All the glamour kings and queens come
out from Denver to show off their new ski outfits on sunny days. I ended up
getting separated from Glen, Anne Marie, and my driving partner David for
the last few hours. When I met up with them in the parking lot after the lifts
had closed they were jumpstarting Dave's Subaru. I guess the battery didn't like the warm day switching to freezing afternoon/evening.
We drove to the town of Breckenridge to get some food and to go to the skatepark. The town looks like your typical ski-resort village: lots of expensive stores selling cowboy hats, t-shirts, indian jewelry, etc and plenty of tourist families milling about. Taking the advice of the skatepark manager we went to a restaurant called Rasta Pasta, a mix of jamaiacan and italian food - delicious. While waiting for a table we walked upstairs to a shop above the restaurant where Glen's friend Miller works. He offered us his floor to sleep on and promised to meet us at Big Fish (the skatepark) after work. When we got back to Rasta Pasta some ornery bearded man started giving Glen shit for getting a table ahead of him. Later, the same guy started chewing out a waitress for having the door open for 5 seconds while she talked to her friend on the sidewalk. That guy was funny, real relaxed for a fella on vacation in the mountains. With some carbos in our bellies the session came together at Big Fish. We tried to get a hold of our friend Joe Hendricks who recently moved there from Pittsburgh but the number they had for him at the park was disconnected and the last anyone had heard Joe was living in a tent. Not surprising for Joe. Big Fish has two mini-ramps: a tiny spine with kickers sticking out here and there and a slightly bigger ramp with a vert wall extension with tilesat the top, and pool coping on the narrow side next to the vert wall. Glen was going way up in the tiles and ollieing from wall to frontside grind on the pool coping, among other tricks. Miller showed up mid-session with a smooth laid-back pool skater style. Long grinds, metal and cement, cess-slides on the vert wall, and my favorite trick of the night: a no-comply roll-out to tail. Once we were too tired too stand, we crashed at Miller's place. The next morning was pretty foggy. Miller told us of his years of fun with Brewce Martin, Ken Leiman, and some of our other East Coast homies. Doesn't it figure the two coolest people we met in Colorado (Glen and Miller) were from the East coast. Dave, Glen, Anne-Marie and I proceded to go backhilling at Loveland Pass and Miller was off to work. We found a sweet little cornice and hucked some big methods and 360s off it. We rode some steep stuff, some trees, and got our hearts pumping hiking up those hills. The snow got pretty crusty but we had tons of fun anyway. We ate at a Swiss restaurant on the way back to Boulder. They had this yummy potato pasta called spatzle. We parted from Glen and Anne-Marie there and went back to Alan John's house where we found 4 pretty hippy girls in his living room. I guess they all went to school in Virginia, one lived in Fort Collins, one lived in Boulder, one was moving to Colorado, and one was just visiting. The girl who was visiting had a super-friendly dog with her (driving cross-country just her and her dog, rad) and the girl from Fort Collins had a two-year old daughter (a little old for breast feeding I think but what do I know about that stuff). We went to a bar (sans the dog and daughter) and drank some of the great microbrews that seem to be everywhere in Colorado. Alan moved in on the girl I was interested in (the sleaze) and later that night whipped me in a couple games of chess. I brought my queen out too early. It was a big sleeping bag slumber party in Alan's living room and we giggled our way into the wee hours of the morning like little kids.
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The next morning Dave made everyone a fat breakfast of blueberry pancakes and sunnyside eggs. Alan finally rolled out of bed around 12, Dave and I were waiting for him to let us into the public skatepark (he's got a key and we didn't know when or if it was opening 'cause it was a holliday).
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The Boulder skatepark has a sweet 10' vert ramp courtesy of Tim Payne, 2 mini ramps, and a street course. Glen left work to come skate with Dave and me. His friend Mark Roth was there too, tweaking all over the place: f/s, b/s, tuck knee, stalefish. Glen has the hugest bag of tricks I've ever seen: every invert variation, smiths both ways, and indy airs with the back leg straight stick out in my mind. He was helping me learn frontside airs too, finally gettin 'em up there. Lambert (Dave, my driving buddy) landed body jars for the first time that day. It was a killer, chill session. Dave couldn't find his camera though and still can't. We drove to Albuquerque, NM that night. It would have been a beautiful drive during the day but too bad Alan needed his beauty sleep so the vert session got a late start.
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