The Road To Holy Bowly has lead us around the world from Japan to Banff and back again a few times over. This year through blizzards, slams, smiles makes and breaks this twisty frost heaved road brought us a little closer to home to one of the most iconic global snowboard epicenters, Timberline, OR aka Mt. Hood.
Stoke was high as the crew assembled on the hollowed ground of Windells Academy the concrete dream scape skate campus in Welches, OR. that also houses High Cascade Snowboard Camp. This was to be our base for the whole week, what it lacked in kitchens it more than made up for in skate sessions and apres shred lawn chair hang time. Our crew was thick including Lib, Gnu, and Bent Metal riders, everyone vibrating with the anticipation of another crack at the one of a kind freestyle flow snowboard dream scape that is The Holy Bowly.
When we arrived on hill it was obvious that once again Snowboy Productions had out done them selves. The Bowly terrain brought to life at Timberline was truly one of the wonders of the world; a flow state mathematical puzzle with such an unquantifiable amount of possibilities you could melt your brain just looking at it. When Krush gave his intro speech and the gate was finally opened the task at hand was now deciphering and destroying. This is a tricky balance between riding the terrain for the pure joy it provides, unlocking as much of it’s hidden potential as possible and still “getting shit done” from a photo / video stand point. Zimmerman, Lucey and Stantech were deployed with specific mission statements and shot lists; shoot it all, make it look rad. And they did, but not without some hurdles. Mother Nature threw mucho curve balls at us melting out transitions in a blink of an eye, whipping warm winds, dense fog and a heavy rain day to boot. Krush and the Snowboy team were working triple over time to keep the course open and in good shape for the 300 or so invited riders from around the world. Their herculean efforts paid off and the sessions went off with acres of insane freestyle terrain erupting with session after session day after day. After the dust settled and we sat in the Timberline lot on the last day reflecting again on the amount of riding we just experienced we couldn’t help but let questions and self doubt creep in; “Did we do enough? What about that line? Why didn’t I go from that boob to the landing of the other hip? I should have done a method here a front three there. I should have done less and just rode…” so and and so forth the post Bowly blues set in. But just for a second, because we had to grab our soggy boots, throw the boards in the box, jump in the Libaru and hit it, QP Campout is only four days out! Just like that we’re back on the Road To Holy Bowly.
Dream terrain for dream boards
The big bowl at the bottom
Sweetin was born to Bowly
Tucker Andrews unleashes on the Greenest
Big Smooth Ted Borland
Ted finds a butter pad in land of possibility
Burtner get’s blunted before post Bowly blues set in
Professional skater Phil Hansen
Tucker doing Tucker
Tuck goes big to
Phil flowing freestyle attack with a perfect method
Måns railing a turn
Tucker sends the Splat Bros gap
Tucker golden hour hike
Some of the crew on the last night
Måns looking like an electrocuted Beavis
Måns unleashes front 7 over the Splat Bros gap
Måns blasting off…no chem trail
Zebbe back fives to Boring….Oregon.
