High Cascade Adult Session 6 - August 2010

The top of Palmer; Above the clouds.

 I have been going to High Cascade for a number of years now as both a youth camper and an adult, and in the last two the camp has gone through an enormous number of changes.

The crew gets ready to shred.

This years adult session featured some of the strongest talent from "old people" I've witnessed in a while.  With a number of improvements and additions to High Cascade's facilities on snow and off, it was a perfect recipe for progression.

On hill the setup couldn't have been crispier.  An abundance of rails, wallrides, medium jumps, and signature creations like the double manual pad, with one showtime booter kept on its own. All of this instantly accessible via the Big Toe (High Cascade's first rope tow added summer of last year).

A good-morning cruise through Main Park.

One of the keys to progression that High Cascade has stuck with is starting each session fresh with all features buried to where falling becomes low-consequence; there is no better way to build confidence as familiar features melt out and grow bigger each day.   

A private lap park just for you. Rails to hip to more jumps!

Backflips into clouds.

The highlight of the session for me was the lap park. While it no longer featured the back-to-back hips I enjoyed last summer, the slopestyle setup of rails between jumps High Cascade went with this year made for some really progressive hot laps.  The kickers were sized perfectly for trying all of the things you weren't completely sure about, and many a first backflip attempt was landed here.

Hiking the pipe, while considered by some a kind of religious experience and chance to become one with the transition, takes a lot out of you.  With the addition of a second rope tow to do away with that endurance test, the adult campers found themselves riding High Cascade's superpipe more often.  Many of us learned to air out of a pipe for the first time, still more even learned to link spins in all four directions off both walls.

Hard to miss, the biggest addition to High Cascade's main park was the airbag on loan from the DC Mountain Lab.  Landing on a cushion of air gives you the balls to do some brave things, and a few adult campers came away with their first backflips board attached.

Chris Hargrave (Green beanie) teaching the handplant "squirt".

An adult-only handplant clinic with instructor extraordinaire Chris Hargrave yielded tremendous results.  Many campers were able to stick their first handplants, and the ones that didn't were well on their way to landing it this coming season.  Words cannot express my stoke in learning a trick that had been giving me grief for three years on both walls of the minipipe.  Cheers to you Chris for making dreams come true.

 New additions to the skate areas.

Off snow the activities offered by High Cascade reached new heights, with a redesigned skate course, completely new bowls to skate, and the all new foampit/trampoline area.

The best part about being an adult camper is the opportunity to participate in "adult-only" activities.  We were given full reign of the bowls and the trampoline course; no kids allowed!  All of the adult coaches came together to teach everyone how to skate the bowls, but the one thing everyone got into was a backflip clinic using the trampolines and foam pit.  Every adult camper learned to backflip that day; some even went on to try doubles, gainers, and rodeos.

Even with all of the fun to be had, there are still some things about camp that need to change.  It's understandable with Mt. Hood being one of the big summer training grounds for professional snowboarders that campers and pros will be sharing the mountain, but watching pro riders hang out with themselves, snake campers in the rope-tow line, and generally be their own entity separate from the camp experience is discouraging. 

This is part of High Cascade that has gotten more noticeable the longer I'm at camp, and considering the average session costs about $3000 I feel like those who have daily access to these facilities can be a bit more sympathetic.  For example, why should the Stepchild team skate with the kids and make someone's session when they can just do their own thing?

All in all, it was a unique experience to see the camaraderie and watch a group of nearly 60 adult campers (the largest adult session to date) of entirely different skill levels push each other to accomplish their goals.  We learned handplants in a halfpipe together, we learned how to backflip together, we skated the bowls together, and when we were done we partied our asses off at DJ Matty Mo's final show.

Rumor has it that with the success of this adult camp, we've proven to High Cascade we are worth the investment and next year adults will have three opportunities to enjoy camp versus the two (first and last session) that have been available in years past.

One thing is certain, seeing a train of the entire adult crew boost every jump in the lap park was once in a lifetime, and the most fun I think I've ever had at camp. Rock on "Old People"!