Skatepark nerds unite! Skaters for Public Skateparks Summit Hailey, Idaho, May 27-29th.

FRIDAY EVENING: SUN VALLEY, IDAHO 

Green peaks of the Sawtooth Range surrounded me as I stood atop the fullpipe at Hailey, Idaho, still dizzy from the altitude drop I experienced on the first run through the deep end of the park. Whoosh! A leer jet carrying the filthiest of rich took off from the Halley airport across the highway and I immediately followed suit, rolling in on the quarterpipe side, up high on the vertical face, and then rollercoasting back over the pipe--whoosh!--into the depths again.

Sun Valley in the spring is downright pleasant. Warm weather, afternoon thunderstorms, fuzzy dandelion things floating through the air, and the cleanest porta-potties I've ever seen. Plus, there's not only the super tranny park at Halley but also the mellower Dreamland park up the valley at Ketchum. A perfect place for a quick fly-in skate mission if I've ever seen one. And so it was, for I had a rented SUV to live in for a few days, a Styrofoam (no CFCs) cooler to keep the cold ones in, and plans to meet up with a load of dudes for a meeting of the minds concerning the future of skateparks. Very cool indeed.

SATURDAY: CRUISING KETCHUM, THE BIRDMAN(!), A TRIP TO THE HOSPITAL, AND SOME SWEET SKATEPARK ADVOCACY

Day two started early, probably around 7:00am. Turns out the SUV was not as comfy as I'd hoped. My back was crinkled. Last night I parked in the driveway of a dude named Mike Muir. But this ain't Venice, Holmes. This is Idaho. This Mike Muir is just this cool construction dude who skates and hooked me up with a place to park and crash. I rolled up to the Hailey park at 8:00am, coffee and muffin at the ready, and the Seattle contingent was already going at it. Skate sessions before noon are good; however, I opted for a quick jaunt to Ketchum, some 10 miles further up the valley. The town of Ketchum looks a lot like Hailey, but more on the ritzy side of things. The park there is m-e-l-l-o-w. Lots of jumps, a zippy over-vert pocket, some pool-block action, and some slash banks. I dug it. I also jumped in the Big Wood River and froze my wood down to something more like a button on a fur coat. Damn dude, very cold-like.

I rolled back to Halley around noon, and behold, perched on top of the fullpipe was the Birdman himself--one T Hawk. Seems the guy had a weekend off and decided to come up with Tony Hawk Foundation Director Miki Vuckovich to check out our little skatepark advocacy meeting. Word spread quickly and soon the place was crawling with parents and their rosy-checked, helmeted offspring, all hoping to catch some sweet autograph action. It's been a long time since I've seen the Hawk skate but he did not disappoint, throwing down the twist in the deep end and all sorts of wacky lip trickery. I even saw him sign a kid's cell phone up on top of the fullpipe. How 2005 is that? I was so stoked that I jumped on my board, carved around the shallow side, and slammed into this dude who was sliding backwards on his knees down the pipe rollover. My board's nose basically imbedded itself in the guy's shin leaving a giant hole in its place and all kinds of hair and skin on the nose of my board. Gross. The guy's name was Zim. He's a cool dude and I felt like a schmuck so I gave him a ride to the hospital and got him all stitched up. He was back at it the next day.

The skatepark advocacy meeting also fell on Saturday. When Zim and me got back from the stitch job the meeting was just getting started. The Birdman was in attendance, along with all the locs I'd met over the last two days during the shredding. It was like being in skatepark nerd heaven. This dude Bracken gave a presentation about how ripped off cities are getting by going with the modular, plastic skatepark style, Hawk talked about having to do demos at skateparks that sucked too bad to even skate, and the cold cut deli tray zone was out of this world. More than anything, the idea that all these guys and girls showed up in Idaho to show their solidarity towards getting kick-ass parks built all over the world was very neat. I sat in the back by the cold cuts just revelling in it all. Actually, there were lots of well-thought-out presentations that I can't do justice to in this short spiel, so you'd all be better off if you checked out the website skatersforpublicskateparks.org for the real deal. After the meeting it was off to the bar and then sweet slumber (this time in the Rodeo parking lot next to the Hailey park).

SUNDAY: A RUN-IN WITH OLD FRIENDS, A GIANT FEAST, AND TWO DRUNKARDS KNOCK HEADS

Headache from the beer, but I was ready to hit it nonetheless. Rolled around Hailey park early, but soon headed for coffee and the Ketchum roller park once again. Cruised the backstreets looking for Hemming way's ghost (he took himself out via shotgun here back in '61), and then slid into the park right through the middle of a sports bra-laden 10-kilometer run. Woo-hoo! At this point, the totally random event of the trip occurred. My old friend Glen Charnoski and his wife Anne-Marie were at the park after a five-year hiatus in Asia. Mind you, they live in Colorado and I hadn't seen them in something like eight years. Sometimes life is just trippy and cosmic like that. Glen was skating as good or better than when I last saw him at the Boulder vert ramp back in '96. After another genital-warping dip in the Big Wood, we jammed back to Halley for what turned out to be a Glen demo on the big vert quarterpipe opposite the fullpipe. We're talking tuck knee eggplants, inverts, crails, and all sorts of insanity. The SPS dudes were losing it.

The night was topped off with a great BBQ back at Idaho Mike Muir's pad, complete with a full Mexi menu, a keg of IPA, and the most ridiculous drunken argument I've ever heard. This old salt Slak Jack who is the self-appointed caretaker of the Hailey park got into it around the fire with this new blood street dog from Seattle named Auggie. Basically, these dudes just were drunk, but the gist was that Auggie thought the parks in Idaho are too tranny oriented, which pissed off the Slak. It turned into this hilarious shouting match that had me running to the keg for my beers because I didn't want to miss what they were going to spew out next. These guys were essentially on the same team, but both were too blasted to realize it. You gotta love that drunken confusion.

SOME CLOSING THOUGHTS FROM THE DEEP END

So that was pretty much it for the Idaho barge. Skatepark nerd meeting successful, raw meat carnage at the Hailey park, reunion with old friends, the Birdman cometh, and loads of new buddies from the Northwest. Despite all the doom and gloom in the world, things are still looking pretty good. 'Til the next time, stay outta the deathbox and keep getting rad.