Big Air.

You know the saying "go big or stay home," right? I wrote a song about it once, but that's another story.

In the park, you have your whoop-de-dos, your rails, your boxes, and your little kickers. And, of course, you have your big kickers. The big kicker at Willamette is nowhere near as big as the parks in Colorado, or any other major resort for that matter. Nonetheless, it is five feet high with a 40' gap to clear if you don't want to flatten your arches.

We went up again today, since everyone had the day off (even though I should have been working). Dylan worked his way up to the big kicker.

That doesn't really do it justice--it's much bigger and badder--especially if you don't clear the gap. The video does it a little better justice (warning, R-rated).

This one is even better, but a little dark.

And there's this film noir mania.

I used to go big too.

This was probably sometime in 1974 or 75 probably at Snowmass on one of the family trips. Even back then I found a way to make it fun. The biggest I ever went was on a hooky day at Vail when I was 15. I went up with my neighbor Larry, his girlfriend and a high school buddy named Steve who's family just happened to have a house in West Vail. We skied through the weekend and then on Sunday afternoon a big storm moved in. Word was that we could not make it back for school on Monday...too dangerous or something. More like, 15" of fresh on a Monday at Vail. How can you go wrong with that? We were back on the Northwoods express and hitting some outrageous stuff off the North Rim. Steve ended up at the top of a 30' drop. We dared him to do it. He did, dropped 30' and stuck in the snow at the bottom. It looked like so much fun the rest of us had to try it. Dropping 30' on skis is quite the adrenoline rush.

My neighbor, Clyde Getty, took things a lot further than I did. He moved to Boulder and joined the Argentinian aerial team (actually, he was the Argentinian aerial team) and completed in the 1998, 2002, and 2006 Olympics. He was throwing double-twisting double-back flips, when the standard was a quad triple. I think he came in last place, but no matter: he's an Olympian. Since he's the same age as me, he was no young buck when he competed. There may still be hope for me... nah. Anyway, our family takes a small amount of credit--he used our trampoline as a kid and we took him up a fair number of times.

To state the obvious, things have changed a lot since the 1970s. Back then, if you could do a spread eagle, you were a "hot dog." If you could to a mule kick, you were the shit. If you could do a daffy, or a moonwalk... that was the bomb. My generation (various reports would put me as a boomer or a Gen Xer; I find them both distasteful) launched the "make everything more extreme" trend. It hasn't let up. These days, 1080s, or Rodeo 540s, or Dinner Rolls, or any other number of tricks are the norm.

There's more stories from other times and places, but that's the best I got--at least for cliff diving.

I don't have to do rocks or big jumps anymore. I've found that it takes a lot longer to get fixed when I get broken. I'm more than content with the memories.

It's getting near the end of the season, but we've had six feet of fresh in the last couple of weeks. The lifties are making the best of it. To one man it's simply a lift shack; to this lifty, it's a castle--his castle. I'm impressed!

The box.

Diane is wondering what crazy stuff Dylan will do next.

It snowed a few inches last night on top of yesterday's rain, and the snow that came before that, and the rain that came before that...

I took a few runs and then put on the teles for some tele-bombing. Diane was going in to use the facilities, so I thought I would take a run up top. As I was crossing over to the other lift, I picked up some speed to avoid walking. The line I picked looked packed enough until I augered in a couple of feet. Glad I decided to keep the helmet on because it kinda rung my bell. I don't know if anyone from the lift saw it, but if I had, I would have said something like "Gnarly, dude!" and then laughed. That was my best crash all day. We'll let Diane tell about her parking lot escapades later.

The weather forecasters are calling for sunshine tomorrow... but not for me. I'll spend the day in my office dreaming about today.