During my 7 days in The Gorge it has been windy every day but one.
Like most kiters here, Davey, Sleezy and I lived on the Washington side, only a 5 Minutes and 75 Cent to cross the bridge drive away from the spot, which is on the Oregon side. The river divides both counties.
Last weekend, the local riders organized an event at the spot, where people could test material & get advice from the Pro’s.
Jason Sleezak a.k.a Sleezy managed to convince his sunglass sponsor Smith to drive down their Slider Limousine from the mountains, where its usually hit by Snowboarders. The thing was really big and long and had plenty of gnarly edges, etc
We first installed it for the Regular footers, but as we were the small minority (only Davey, me and Dylan) they quickly moved it into Goofy direction for the rest of day. Davey still got some amazing stuff dialed on the Limo, he was the one to hit it first and Backside Boardslided the whole thing first try! Once they moved it in the other direction, Dre, Sleezy and Ruben started to dominate the thing. Dre was going insanely fast and smooth, once again proving his god-like status in sliders.
After sliding it, the driver gave us a lift to a restaurant.
For the rest of the week we had some other sliders build by Joby (LF) and the Inept crew. One very good one got lost through the current though, but there still was the kicker and a nice box.
On our last day in The Gorge we went night snowboarding. A friend of Joby works at the summer ski resort close to The Gorge and drives the snow cat by night. This ski resort is actually a funpark, its full of halfpipes, sliders and shinn. Dylan trains here and absolutely kills it on the Snowboard and most American Pros train here during summer. So we went up this mountain to Nine Thousand Foot were the Snow Cat dropped us of at Midnight. You could see Portland from the Mountain, which is an hour drive away and we were the only ones up here. I hadn’t snowboarded since 4 years so I wasn’t sure how I would do but it was all cool in the end and we had lots of fun.
Next morning Tekko (LF team manager), Sleezy and I drove to the Airport to catch our flight to Maui.
Once we arrived there, we met Mauricio and John Romais, who now works in the office, Julie Simsar, Davey Blair, … After that I had a late afternoon session at kitebeach.
I was overwhelmed to finally come to the place where all the movement started, but swam more than I kited, cause the wind was already offshore and really bad. After that we went out to have dinner at a place that converts to a club at 11pm. Julien Fillion, our kitedesigner came out 2 and it was only through him that I could stay at the party, we look similar, so I could use his ID to party.
Today we had another session at kitebeach which was a bit better, but again offshore, very gusty and very strong, I was on my 7m. To get to ride the good conditions we will have to wake up earlier from now on.
Picturecredit goes to tekkophoto.com
A couple of days ago MJ from Liquid Force asked me to come to Orlando for the Surf Expo, a huge event where all the surf, wake and skate brands present their new stuff, so I took a train from Hamburg to Flensburg on Wednesday and then went to Copenhagen with MJ (on the way we had a flat tire in the middle of the night), where we slept one night and then went on to Orlando with a stop in New York.
Once we got bored at the expo, Troels and Mads from Denmark and I drove down to the cable park where I had my sickest slider session ever, the park is full with the best obstacles. As it was my first time hitting obstacles at the cable I started tranquilo, but the progression is really fast and soon I was able to land some big toeside 3′s of the kicker and hit the sliders in all kind of body postures and with passes. Next time I’m back home in Marbella I will have to convince the park owner there to build some obstacles…
