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"!

Hood Bound

The Hood shot.

 What a journey it has been. I woke up at 6am on Tuesday morning and jet out of Southern California with my sights on getting as close to Mt. Hood as possible. Counting an overnight stop in Redmond, Oregon the trip took about 16 hours driving nonstop.

There's was a lot of amazing scenery to take in moving from deserts to cities, plains, lakes, and rivers; unfortunately I had no time for any of it, so I did some drivebys.

Ground Zero

Leaving the desert.

Six Flags

California "Happy Cows" huddled shoulder-to-shoulder to live in their own shit.

Farmland

Sacramento--the city of...trees?

California landscape shot

First evidence that snow still exists.

Where they filmed Sound of Music. No, I don't know.

Sunset in Oregon. Only 230 miles to go...

Fancy views from a fancy Portland apartment.

It's nice to be in Oregon and out of the scorching heat. It's also nice that in Oregon you aren't allowed to pump your own gas, so I haven't had to do that for a couple of days. Of course snowboarding today was excellent. Nothing too fancy in the public park this late in the season: for rails there was a choice a single barrel donkey dick, a double barrel down, and a flat bar; for jumps a line of 4 perfectly shaped kickers, which were definitely the highlight of the day.

I have to say I think this is the most barren I've seen Mt. Hood in August, but the public park has kept good shape and I spotted some cats working on the High Cascade layout for session 6, which starts tomorrow. Stay tuned for photos and coverage of what goes down.

High Cascade Adult Camp - Session 6 - 2009

This year was my first year participating in the adult camp offered by High Cascade. I had avoided the adult camp in the past for several reasons: I didn't see the opportunity to drink as being worth the extra $200 and I wasn't sure hanging out with a bunch of "old dudes" (everyone was around my age, officially or in spirit) was going to be a good time. I'm definitely glad I gave adult camp a shot this time around since I had the most fun of any session I've done at High Cascade so far.

Session 6 recap 2009 from High Cascade Snowboard Camp on Vimeo.

There are some major differences between youth to adult camp, and plenty of worthwhile reasons why it costs a bit of extra money for a spot, but first a breakdown of your options... Adult camp offers a few different experiences; you can rent your own lodging or stay in High Cascade's adult lodging and opt for coaching or just cruise the camps private park on your own. Your choices will effect your cost, but for the purpose of this review I opted for High Cascade lodging with coaching.



As mentioned earlier, it costs just about $200 more for the adult coaching and lodging than the same amenities in youth camp, but the extra money goes right to your stomach; instead of the routine camp food (which is actually pretty good) you eat a fancy meal every night... we visited some seriously legit eateries. Eating wasn't the only thing that went down though, High Cascade set up activities galore to keep us insanely busy on and off the slope. From kickball to yoga to bowling there was never nothing to do. For transportation, High Cascade donated their sickest bus, the Boom Bus (lined with Kicker speakers and topped with Kicker subs), to the adult camp cause. Camp even closed off some of their real popular areas for various "adult only" activities. Private bowl session, anyone?





For housing, the camp set aside the entirety of one its lodges, Park Place; it is a four story lodge with an identical floor setup on each floor save the first, which was set aside for the ladies. Rooms are mainly single beds or bunk status with about four to each room. I've stayed in Park Place before and between the HDTV on every floor, the satellite cable and occasional access to one of the only working wireless networks, I like staying there just fine. I will say that last years adult camp were given private cabins much further from the youth campers, which I have also stayed in; the returning adult campers agreed that those were much nicer and better suited to the goings on of adult camp.



Adult camp coaches were hand selected and some of the best coaches that High Cascade has on their roster, and having attended the camp for a few years and getting to know many of the coaches I really do mean that. Our coaches were not only phenomenal riders and instructors but genuinely exceptional human beings; it's true that a day of snowboarding can only be as good as the company you ride with and I know my group was vibing every single day, breaking barriers and pushing limits... both on snow and at the pub.



Last but not least, the park. A quick backstory, Session 6 began after an intense heat wave that had Timberline losing around two feet of snow per day! Coming up on my first glimpse of the mountain I wasn't expecting much, and in true High Cascade fashion I was pleasantly surprised. Everything was still very much shredable, from the main park to the lap park there was still an abundance of kickers, jibs and pipes to get gnarly with. The big-toe (the camps private tow rope) was still up and running for quick laps through the main park, but equally awesome was still being able to lap both parks using the Palmer lift.



Unfortunately Mother Nature had a change of heart, and where it was 9o°F each day the week before, Session 6 found itself smack in the middle of a week of foul weather and two riding days were lost to visibility and miserable conditions (with temperatures as low as 37°F). Especially when so much money is involved, it is easy to get incredibly disappointed about losing any riding time to weather. This is part of our sport and completely out of anyone's control, but this particular occasion in late August is an excellent example of the unpredictability of mountain weather and why you should always prepare for anything. High Cascade was generous enough to refund photo and video session charges due to the poor conditions, and equally generous in finding and funding alternate activities throughout Oregon.

All in all, like I said, this was my best camp experience at High Cascade to date. In fact, I've already started saving for next year.

High Cascade 2009 - Session 6

You know that saying, "more fun than Disneyland"? Well, High Cascade Snowboard Camp up in Mt. Hood, Oregon really is more fun than Disneyland; that's why I'm going up there for my 4th summer. In fact, as you are reading this I'm probably en route to Oregon for Session 6.

What is High Cascade Snowboard Camp, or rather, what isn't it?

A High Cascade vacation includes lodging, food, transportation, trampolines, lake trips, whitewater rafting, paintball, mountain biking, a private dodgeball course, a private street skate course, a private bowl skate course, 2 private lap-able snowboard parks, 1 private rope tow, expert coaches, Cobra Dogs, tons of free demoes and tons of free product.

So I'll be up in a land of never ending snow, aka the Mt. Hood glacier, enjoying all of the above for a week; plus, if all goes well, there will be some new changes and additions to DesertsDontSnow.com as a result.

Stay tuned for daily updates and photos of the goings on... unless my equipment fogs up again and fucks up the whole thing like last summer. Hopefully, I learned my lesson.