Monday, March 26

Parkasaurus II, Day Two

By Mike Jaquet
freezeonline.com

The Velociraptor was known for its cat-like reflexes and ability to invent new hunting tricks in order to survive in a true "survival of the fittest" environment. With due respect to the Velociraptor, the 40 jibbers that traveled from around the globe to be in Southern California this week could administer a serious beat-down on those scaly beasts with the new moves invented in the Parkasauras terrain park.

Day Two of Parkasaurus brought out the best from the crew and set a new standard for jibbery at the same time. Under another blue-sky Snow Summit day, things got kicked off in the halfpipe with Dave Crichton boosting huge and Andy Woods linking flairs like it was his job (wait, I guess it is). After the walls started melting under the insane SoCal sun, the upper rail section of the park heated up with J.F. Cusson stomping a rainbow rail and quickly proclaiming "he was back" after injuries that have plagued the young mullet-sporting skier for the past year.

CR Johnson

Inspired from Cusson's comeback, Vinnie Dorion, Jon Olsson and Tanner Hall displayed Velociraptor-like reflexes back at the Pro Park with jumps that left the Mack Dawg crew on hand baffled. Once again, Parkasaurus has delivered the jib movement to its most skeptical audience in the ski world and received nothing but high praise from former detractors.

With the future of the sport clearly in its back pocket, a crew of 15 skiers and about as many cinematographers and photographers snuck in to the night and slayed the re-cut halfpipe for a night session. As an example of the accommodation the Snow Summit Park Crew has given us this week (Greg, you are the shiznick), the top rail was light on fire. Members of the Summit County crew and others attempted to jib the rail-o-fire but instead spent much of the time putting it out with their butts. It seemed to not be in the cards and the jibbing crew called it a night.

The only bummer of the week came yesterday when Peter "Air Pup" Proos flat-out went for it, attempting to air the first section of the monster pyramid rail, and landed on his back instead. He ended up with a brief stint in the hospital and a bad reaction to his prescribed painkillers, but overall, the smile on the kid's face was ear-to-ear this morning during checkout.

The mystery surrounding the eventual extinction of the Velociraptor and other dinosaurs that roamed the earth is to this day still unsolved. My theory is that their attitudes towards their purpose on earth were too serious and that they spent too much time killing and not enough time enjoying themselves. If my theory holds true, the jib movement should have an infinitely better shot at survival based on the overall good vibe and time that everybody had.

Andy Woods

One last thanks to Snow Summit for hosting us, to the athletes for risking injury in order to progress the sport, and to the collective efforts of the video, film, photo, and support crews that worked their butts off to document this incredible week.