so camp is over. long tiring drive home sat eve. i wish i was at eau claire, and it woulda been doable, but too draining - time to come home. the last evening they hold a contest, and the last event is "best trick" - being numerous shots one-by-one at whatever you can throw down on this selected feature of the park. i could not get any action shots, so i will have to describe what went down.

it was a tie - 2 kids wer going at it. the feature consists of a 11 ft high double-bank set-up . . .from steepish to near vertical( at this angle you cannot actually see the last near-vert 5 feet of the bank ), with a 6 foot quarterpipe in the middle as a kinda launch. on top is a 3 foot deck to a wall.

kid no 1 was a little fellow, and he lauched off the 6 foot quarter-pipe, spun a 540 frontside ( facing the wall - hard to dos ), and landed up on the deck in a "disaster" - that being the is board half on the steep re-entry, and the other half up on the deck. he then nudged the rear of the board up and onto the plummeting steep re-entry.

kid no 2 was bigger, and fast. he went for the burly approach rather than tricker. he blassted off the quarter-pipe, sailed clear over the remaining 5 feet of nera-ver banking, across the deck, up another 4 feet or so and onto the steel wall near the middle of the signs you see there. he planted his feet, , compressed, and leapt back off the wall across the deck. at precisely the right moment, he found the balls to put his board back under his feet as he sailed down past the lip of the banking/wall, using the tail of the board as it hit the lip as a placement tool before unbelievably putting his other foot on the front of the board as he re-enters the ultra steep banking blind and plummeting super fast and hard - a slam here woulda been very very bad.

they do this to win a hat. unbelievable.

anyway, cycle related here is the dirt-jump section of the park. i am so happy to be a part of this place. they run 2-3000 kids thru here a sumer and every of them shows that every other time toy here about there "nothing for kids to do" or people bitch about "kids-these-days" is ful of it. this tiny gem of a camp in the middle of nowhere proves it. most ofthese kids have nothing like at home, nick - surely doesn;t. they look inside, and they find it, and they bring it out. i have great hope.