Steven’s Pass Park Log

April 18th Day 1:

The jumps are ready and its time to head to Seattle to pick up the kids. What is usually a 4 hour drive turns into a 8 hour ordeal. After picking up Gus Kenworthy, Bobby Brown, AJ Burton, and Lesh it begins to snow. Mind you we are at a park shoot and its dumping in Seattle. The Pass is littered with Corvettes, Mustangs and other horrible cars that slid off the road. We approach a car stopped in the middle of the highway. AJ rolls down the window and asks a guy, “what are u doing” The guy, quickly replies, It beautiful out here. We finally make it home to hear stories from Mike Wilson about pulling cars with his trailer that already has three snowmobiles on it. Typical Mike Wilson.

April 19th Day 2:

The snow continues to fall. Over a foot of new and its time to start shooting park. We light up a bottom jump at night and film as Bobby, Gus, AJ, Dvorak and others destroy it. All park shoots in the Northwest should be planned at night. Its easier to create your light than to wait for the sun.

April 20th Day 3:

Its warmed up to about 25 so its time to film on some rails. We spend time dusting of the rails and begin to session them. I get a call from Mike Mertion, who should already be at Stevens Pass. “He are you guys at Stevens Pass, “Yeah are you here”. Mike replies, No I’m at Summit, so I’m close right. By close Mike means that he drove about four hours out of the way. By the time he arrives its snowing but we decide to hold out and hit the rail feature in the afternoon. Gus decides that he is feeling it and absolutely murders it. Mike and Cosco get a few in as well, so we call it a day and return to the lavish life in Levenworth Washington.

April 21st Day 4:

It has now warmed up to 28 degrees, and there is rumor that the sun was spotted poking through the clouds. Anticipation is building for the big jump that the cat drivers have been pushing on for 3 straight days. We warm up finishing off the lower jump and rail feature. Mertion, Felton, and others session the jumps as Cosco and Lesh return to the rail feature to get their shots. Gus sits back and instructs the on how its done. In the afternoon the main jump is ready. Time to figure out who’s going to guinea the 90ft Long Jon Jump. Speed checks are made and Taylor Felton steps up to the plate. Taylor is extremely underrated on his ability to do crazy shit. He is really calculated and confident on big jumps. A quick session leads to a snowstorm and our day is done.

April 22nd Day 5:

it’s a 5:00am wake up call on our last day of shooting. The forecast is calling for a three hour break in the weather before the next storm rolls in. We roll up to the mountain to see Spong sleeping in his car waiting for us. Next comes Seo like a bat out of hell. Rock music blaring as he pulls into the parking lot at about 40. Ask anyone who as experienced a drive with Seo, and they’ll either tell you it was fun or incredibly frightening. The skies are clear and its 32 degrees. No time to break out the tanning lotion, and the session begins. Dub’s, straight airs, knuckles and overshoots are all witnessed before the wind and snow return to close out the shoot. This will go down as one of the most fun shoots ever, in between hitting jumps athletes were able to get powder laps around the features. We bid farewell to the sun and put the wraps on the first of four park shoots. The best jump that we have ever been a part of was only hit for a few hours but thanks to Rage’s most talented crew to date, we have bangers to share. Thanks again to Brian, Chris, Junior, and the rest of the staff at Stevens for making such a killer park for us.

Shasta Park Log

April 24th:

Day 1: One day isn’t usually enough time between park shoots but word is that the snow is melting in Shasta and the crew is ready to work on our tans. We arrive and get straight to work on a roller coaster box of sorts. Gus once again puts a show on while Cosco shows why he is so well rounded. At Shasta it’s a different pace. More laid back and casual with a bunch of shoveling. After hitting the box we set in a rail with the expectation of hitting it the next day. With the return of Spring weather an official start of the B-ball season began. Stand out up incoming Rage basketball athletes include Point Guard Derek Spong. The Rookie team was no match for the veteran team anchored by Dylan Natale and Kyler Cooley.

April 25th: Day 2:

With weather in the 60’s the crew woke up stoked to see the sun. A 45 foot gap with an up hill knuckle was a bit sketchy to step to. After some deliberation on who was to hit it Mertion and Gus gave it a go. After about 7 hours everyone including, Devo, Gus, Mertion Dylan, Spong, Burton, and Wilson bagged solid shots. Oh I also had a great conversation with Ian Cosco on the phone it goes as follows. “Hey Ian are you still on your way,” Ian responds,” Well kinda, I crossed the California border but they turned me around.” “Why”, “Well I guess they don’t allow Ferrets in California, So I have to drive back to Reno and drop little Weez with some friends,” Typical Cosco.

April 26th Day 3:

We put the rail to rest and quickly work on a Dub QP jib. The woods of Shasta hold some really big and scenic trees first scoped by Pete Alport. We decided to once again create a tree jib focused on timing. After many tests for timing two teams were assembled to get the shot. Team A of Mertion and Devo, and Team B of Dylan and Kyler. The pressure was on as a hoop game was on later the day. Without much practice both teams got the timing right and another successful day was had. The only timing that was off that day was Dylan’s broke ass jumper.

April 29th Day Day 4-5:

The first three days were the exact opposite of Stevens. Each day was hotter then the next with temps in the 70’s. We were happy to have a few weather days to treat our burned skin. The highlight of the weather day saw a record movie performance entailing 6 movies viewed, capped off with Gremlins 2, Kyler’s Pic,.
It was time to ski again. The last feature was a dozzy that had plenty of skepticism. We had a jungle gym of sorts with a hip, snow wall ride, butter box, jump feature. Richard Permin came from Alaska to join the fun, and by the second day witnessing the 10th rodeo off the wall ride, I knew that Shasta was a complete success.

April 30th:

As bad weather moved in, the crew disbanded and headed to Squaw for the third leg of the park tour. Once again Shasta provided such a fun atmosphere for a park shoot. Big Thanks go out to Ty and the Shasta crew. If you ever get the chance, check out Shasta Ski Park next winter. It is the most laid back and fun ski area out there.