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K2 Skis’ party on wheels; 2014 Road Trip Challenge

K2 Skis’ party on wheels; 2014 Road Trip Challenge

The next morning is rough. Riding high on our victory, we partied ourselves into a serious state of hangover and officially trashed the hell out of our home. The floor is covered in ink, sticky as hell, and littered with remnants of a good time. Not to mention the smell. Oh, the smell.

A few of us go grab some breakfast and bring it back to the RV where Jordan is still passed out above the cab and Gorham, suffering possibly one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever seen, is laying in the tattoo parlor. The latter makes an attempt at eating which results in his quick departure from the vehicle to avoid throwing up all over it. The cameras quickly come out, and Gorham is even quicker to tell Decker and Baldwin where they can shove them. In the meantime, we post a Craigslist ad aimed at Florida that advertises a wave runner for sale at a hell of a discount. I put the number of the Nordica team phone in there and wish that we could be there to hear what kind of phone calls result from it.

Since everybody is too hungover to ski, we decide we’ll get to work smashing the old TV we have sliding around the RV. We head for the iconic Burlington double kink and just as we pull into the parking lot across the street from the school, I hear Jordan start hurling into a pizza box while lying in the bunk above me. It seems eating wasn’t a good idea for him either. The crew is less than stoked on it, but he tells everybody to “chill” as he darts out the door with a box that’s dripping more than greasy leftovers.

We stumble out of the RV and survey the scene. Mostly quiet save a few cars in the parking lot—meaning a few people inside.

A few minutes later a loud noise pierces the silence, and the Panasonic relic does a perfect disaster down the double kink—flawless execution by Vila and points on the board for K2. The three of them jump back in the RV, and we hightail it out of there before anybody knows what happened. The annoyance of having a TV sliding around has now transformed into the danger of having jagged, broken plastic and glass pieces sliding around, and our RV continues its transformation into a rolling city dump.

It’s now about 4 in the afternoon, and our list of accomplishments includes eating, puking and destruction. “Ugh, I need to brush my teeth,” I hear coming from the back. We pull over in an attempt to get our life together and decide that some night skiing is in order. We know that we need to be in Boston in a couple days, and I suggest we point the bus south, toward Gunstock, NH—partly because it makes sense and partly because I grew up skiing there and hadn’t been back in over a decade. The group is on board. I put the Econoline in gear and hop on 89 South.

By the time we pull into the Gunstock parking lot, it’s about 8 o’clock at night. The boys shred hot laps through the park, linking up multiple lines among the different features it has to offer. Just before closing, we all beeline it for the tubing hill. We’re hoping to bag a few more points before the lights go out, and the staff is more than accommodating—giving Gorham, Jordan and Vila a ride to the top with their skis so they can mach down the icy hill, switch, as it glistens under the lights. Count it!

The next morning, we continue our trek south and meet up with some of the other Stept boys—Cam Riley and Nick Martini—who had gotten a ride up from Boston. Vila had been talking about a spot in southern New Hampshire that he wanted to hit for his upcoming solo project. It’s a dam on the outskirts of Manchester and we spend most of the day building up the feature, but a slight breeze keeps growing until Vila is forced to call off the shot. C’est la vie. We hop in the RV and roll onward to Manch-Vegas for some eats.

Following a dinner full of General Tso’s and dragon rolls, we retreat back to our mobile home, feeling lethargic and once again lacking any sort of plan. With the addition of Riley and Martini, we now number eight, and the only suggested activity, a common one, is to get drunk. We drive down the street, and I pull into a 7-Eleven where we get a little more than we bargain for from a lovely cashier. We jump back into the RV with a free case of beer and review the footage of her exposing herself from behind the register for no good reason. The mood has improved dramatically over the last 10 minutes. I point the RV south on 93 and we hightail it for Boston.

By this point, our posse is haggard. We’ve been going nonstop for almost a week, and people are starting to get on each other’s nerves. I park the RV in front of a bar in Allston and we drink a few more beers before deciding to go in and check it out. It is, after all, about 12 feet away. Decker, who has all but lost his voice to a nasty cold, declares that he’ll be staying put and trying to get some sleep.

Around closing time, the seven of us come stomping through the RV door, interrupting Decker’s slumber. We all crack a few more beers, and Jordan suggests we knock off the milk challenge—one that was almost checked off on the first night and had been brought up a number of times since then. Lampert, the creator of the challenge, had originally intended it to say “Take a shot of another man’s chest hair with milk,” but had made a typo and written “Take a shot off another man’s chest hair with milk.” We weren’t sure how or why Lampert ever came up with this, but the simple fact is it is worth a lot of points.

Jordan had bought a small bottle of 2-percent on the first night and now, keen on getting some easy points, pulls it out of the fridge. He needs a partner. Riley gets volunteered and while he isn’t psyched on the idea, agrees to be involved in the spirit of good sportsmanship. He pulls his shirt up as Jordan cracks the top off his milk and announces to the rolling cell phone cameras what he’s doing. The next few seconds are probably some of the most erotic in Stept history.

On the final day of the trip, we awake in front of The Draft house. Tired, sick, hungover and generally feeling like hell, we mount up for one final mission to Wachusset Mountain, a small resort that lies about an hour west of the city. We’ve got a feeling Team Nordica is there, and we figure we might as well show up and ruffle their feathers a bit seeing as how we’re pretty sure that our point totals aren’t going to get us any medals. As we’re getting on the highway, somebody mentions something about a text message from Martini, who had crashed with a friend the night before. Seems as though he forgot a backpack in the RV, and that we’ll need to return it later in the afternoon when we’re back. We drive on.

About 45 minutes later, it comes to light the that the backpack that was left in the RV was actually a camera bag full of equipment that Martini needs before he heads to the airport in a couple hours. By this point, it’s almost noon, and we’re nowhere close to Martini; if we turn around now our whole day is shot. To add to that, Martini has no access to a car to come meet us. The solution: I take exit 41 off of Route 2 in Littleton, MA, and Baldwin proceeds to stash roughly six thousand dollars worth of camera gear in the woods. Meanwhile, Martini hails a cab for a pricey round trip.

We pull into Wachusett’s parking lot a short while later and park head-to-head with our opponent’s RV. They round the corner on their way back to their rig, having been skiing all morning. What a bunch of go-getters. We throw out some casual shit-talking before heading up to the park where some of the local kids are out hot-lapping. Whatever challenges we can recall off the top of our heads are thrown down as we spin laps and line up transfer gaps with some local kids. With the sun high in sky, it’s a perfect ending to the week.

Related: Recounting Team Nordica’s road to victory; 2014 Road Trip Challenge

 

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