Ambition Team Trip Part Two

Day 3: Powder. For the third day of the trip we got off to a late start after out early morning McDonalds trip. We headed out to Mt Royal to find some big handrails hidden in the woods. We ended up finding a massive snowboard handrail, made famous by youtube videos. Alan Gerlach, Max Hilty, and myself decided to give it a go. One after one the rail chomped us up, taking bites out of shins, and throwing Alan to the flat on his back. We decided to come back during better lighting. Team manager Alex and webmaster Quimp had headed back to the team van to get some shovels to fix up the runway. Mt. Royal is a huge place, and they were alone on foot, so we decided to hang out and wait for them at the rail. During our wait, we started hitting some powder lines in the trees. It started off with just a few slashes of some pillows, then we spotted a small 4 or 5 foot rock drop with a log ride coming off it. We moved over and started sessioning the drop just as you would a stair set. After the rock drop, there was about 5 feet of flat to a steep powder landing. At first we thought it was rad to just ollie it. Then we started trying some tricks and the fun really got started. For some reason, it just seemed more fun to kickflip a 5 foot rock drop then a 5 stair.
Right then we decided we needed to film this stuff, unfortunately, we had run out of light, so it was off to the van. On the trip back, Alan, Charlo, Josh, Max, and Alex found some really good powder lines with small catwalks across to pop off. You could do a small ollie and float for 20 feet into powder. The landings felt so rad you could barely tell you hit the snow again, and crashing was funny, instead of painfull.
After hiking a steep a few times, we headed back to the van, which had gotten stuck in the foot of fresh powder we got that day. Alex and Quimp got us shoveled out and we started our journey through downtown Montreal back to the apartments.
After barely making it through the snow-covered downtown roads, we shed our water-logged layers and relaxed for a bit before the night sessions began.
First up, a stretch 7 set with the most awkward handrail ive ever skated…very high, and not long, bad combo. We ended up filming mostly funny credit shots, as the rail was so quick that every trick was pretty much just kissing it. Roby G threw down a switch shov cleaner than many regular ones ive ever seen. Emil B ripped some tweaked out rad grabs. Justin Myjetski threw down a killer back foot flip, i got a few filler shots, and we moved on. We packed up the generator, the lights, and the shovels and heading out. We dropped off half of the team in order to keep a low profile on the next spot. It was a perfect 10 set right in front of a busy workout center. With plow trucks working in full force on the parking lot, we felt quite odd as we set up the lights and started shoveling snow onto the stairways. haha. The plowers didnt bother us, and we were treated with a grand session that lasted to about 3:30 AM. I skated the rail, Justin M., Charlo, and Emil skated the stairset, while Alex B, Nick, and Alan manned the documentation devices. Quimp was the official landing fixer-upper. Justin logged a clean ollie down it, Charlo got robbed on kickflip after kickflip, and Emil blew minds by throwing his signature tweaks down the huge set. I only managed two tricks on the rail, as the narrow runway made it impossible to get the angle on the rail that i usually hit them with. Pretty much, i suck at parralell run in’s to rails. haha.
Still, we managed to skate a set visable from nearly every angle, in the midst of a major snow removal program, without getting kicked out, so we considered it a good night. We dropped Nick, Alan, and Justin off at their dwelling, and headed back to the house to call it a night.
Next up, Day 4: Epicness… Thanks for reading.