NOTES FROM THE ROAD
Words by Alex Foy | Photography by Tal Roberts
I awoke the day of our departure with a healthy dose of hype churning in the gut and questions percolating that only the road could answer. Was my gear all dialed in? How efficiently could I pack a van? And where in the fuck is my spare socket wrench set?
Thoughts like these seem inevitable before a trip and hold some value before you hit the road. Best-case scenario they make you consult and reconsult the checklist, but left to run rampant, these questions will leave you rudderless and intimidated. Moral of it: Triple-check your gear and then burn it down the asphalt – your questions will be in the rearview as soon you hit 60.
After packing up I headed over to my friend Willis Kimbel’s spot to link with everyone. Pulling up at 10 a.m., I wasn’t surprised to see that the front yard was already divided into tidy rows of camera gear, camp items and quivers. The bike trailer was parked neatly next to the curb.
We had an all-time crew consisting of skateboarders Willis Kimbel, Jeremy Tuffli, and me, accompanied by videographers Elias Parise and Chris Varcadipane, and photographer Tal Roberts. Piper, Kimbels’ border collie, would also join for good measure. There wasn’t a dude in the van whom we hadn’t known for more than a decade, and that friendship certainly made chomping down the miles that much more enjoyable.
We weren’t skimping on the toys, either. Final count totaled at three dirt bikes and 12 skateboards in a variety of shapes and sizes to cover any terrain we might find on the road. The tiedowns were locked and double-checked, Piper’s vest was buckled, and the coolers had ice. We budgeted two hours to pack, we expected three, and were on the road to a bowl in the hills of Klamath Falls just before noon.
It’s a coin toss if the body and mind will cooperate on your board after a five-hour drive, but the terrain had everyone hyped to skate. Built in the early 2000s by Dreamland Skateparks, the deep moonscapes, one-of-a-kind features, and endless pool coping have made this place a must-hit for two decades now. The temperature also dropped below 90 degrees for the first time that day, and the music blasting out Willis’ speaker amplified the hype. We rolled until the sun went down and the transitions became gray and shadowed. Any more grinds would ha’ve been greedy.
A dropped pin and some enigmatic texts from an elusive old friend, Rye Clancy, led us through a dark, winding road to his homestead above Klamath. That night after setting up tents on his property, we wandered through his little slice of paradise with head lamps adorned, and in the shadows, we found two bowls built into the steep land, along with several small structures and sculptures. It’s his own personal playground, and it contains everything he needs to be happy.
By 7:30 a.m., we could already tell this day was going to be even hotter than the last. I rolled out of my van sweating like Ace Ventura crawling out of the rhino, and we knew we had to get the session going quickly before the heat passed into the triple digits.
Clancy’s bowls were rawer in the daylight. Traditionally bowls have either circular steel or pool coping on the edge of the transition. Clancy, however, bucked the system and cemented river rock into the bowl’s edge for his coping. Each grind raddled and ripped across the rocks, with debris flying out on each turn. When the rocks started flying, Kimbel got a strange idea. Gathering some spare stones from the property, he placed several on the rim of the bowl. His next frontside turn sprayed rocks across the ground like a surfer slashing through the edge of wave. In fact, some waves would have felt good in that moment as the sun continued to scorch down on us, so we jumped back in the van to crank the A/C and continue onward toward Mammoth.
A bit before the gas started burning on this trip, Kimbel caught up with his pal Jamie Lynn and rinsed a pint over recent travels and rambles to be, and Lynn gave Kimbel some hints for turns to take on this route. It’s impossible to give someone like Lynn a title. Artist? For sure. OG Pro Snowboarder? He’s done that. But Kimbel thinks of him more as a Renaissance man living life in a savage purity. He said meeting Vic Lowrence, aka “Sick Vic,” was a must-stop in Tahoe, and that was all we needed to hear to crank it west and make another detour.
Tahoe was never a part of the itinerary, but when Lynn made the connection and Lowrence hit up Kimbel about skating his private ramp in the woods, we just had to go. Traveling has taught us one rule that never ever seems to fail: Skateboards are the skeleton key to cool shit. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve encountered the most amazing people and most protected scenes simply because I had a skateboard and sense enough to bring some brews. And it’s no coincidence I’ve met my very best friends through skateboarding.
“Stay wherever we land and we’re good” was always the plan, and when Vic and his wife Sarah Lowrence gave us their yard for the night, we all felt the unspoken code of the road. There’s an understanding that goes both ways when you find people who share a common passion for what you do. A basement floor or a bit of grass might as well be a 5-star hotel after cramming a month of fun into one exhausting day. And the people who extend that hospitality know it just helps us along to the next realm of good times.
Lynn told us that Lowrence is a doer of all things fun and fast, and he’s gnarly as fuck at it all. Sure, he scaled the pro snowboarding ranks, but we soon came to find that he can hold his own on any type of board, bike, or sled. We had planned to crash with him that one night only, skate his ramp in the morning, and then head south that evening, but that piece of grass under the balcony and Lowrence’s lust for life kept us around wanting more. Two days later, we finally found ourselves saying goodbye to them after multiple backyard ramp and pool sessions, river dips, and late-night stories. I took a step back as we sat fireside laughing our asses off with our new friends and realized that this trip was kicking into high gear. Meeting people like this is why keeping rolling down these roads.
We arrived at the high-elevation oasis of Mammoth late that evening. It was a long and lonely road from Tahoe, but FuBar clips and two-way radio banter kept us pushing through the dark. Despite pulling into town close to 1 a.m., our next host and friend, Tom Weniger, met us outside the motel he manages as soon as we pulled up. People in the know, know Weniger. Beside managing the motel where he hooked up rooms for us, Tom is a central figure in the Mammoth skate scene and recently started a project called Mental Illness Orange (MIO) to bring skate communities together to turn off the phone and talk about mental health.
The parking lot the next morning was a melting pot of hype and good friends. Scott Blum pulled up first. Kimbel has known Blum for over 20 years through surfing, skating, snowboarding and everything else in between. He’s a renowned snowboarder known for everything from the steepest backcountry powder lines to lip-sliding 40-stair handrails. Blum was followed by Creature Skateboards Brand Manager Jake Smith and a few other friends tagging along from Yucca Valley, and we were all ready to hit Mammoth.
Volcon Brothers Skatepark in Mammoth takes days to study and learn. Sure, you might get in some grinds and maybe a line you think is tight in the moment on your first day, but to really make the park work it takes days of false starts, lightbulb moments, and building up your bravado to step to the 13-foot-plus transitions. The park doesn’t give out freebies, and you’d best believe you’re going to smoke at least one pair of pants during a session. And it’s all worth it. There’s really no other park on Earth that has a combination of organic flow, massive concrete walls and unique features quite like Mammoth. The park is also a reflection of its geography; instead of flattening the rocks, earth, and trees from the space, the builders poured the concrete around and onto the landscape that has resided there for millennia.
With the initial skate session being a success, we were all itching to unload the bikes and check out the endless trails surrounding us. We met Scott a ways outside of town at one of his local spots. It had rained earlier in the week, making the dirt soft and not too dusty, and Scott toured us around some singletrack trails he’s been saving in his back pocket for years. We were about 20 minutes out when we heard the first ping of hail bounce off our bikes, and soon we found ourselves laughing hysterically as we tried to find our way back in the onslaught of ice and cold. My iPhone was a casualty to the storm, but I’ll just chalk it up as one less distraction.
Our next camp area was nestled outside Mammoth in the surrounding Inyo National Forest. Scott clued us into the area, and it was far enough off the beaten path to provide the freedom we desired. Our camp sat in the middle of a large, wide berm with trees that could accommodate hammocks and provide shade during the long afternoons. Over the berm was a soft, sandy hill that dropped us onto miles of fire roads and singletrack.
Now that most of the skate footage was collected from the multiple, many-hour Mammoth park sessions, we turned our attention to ripping the bikes around the trails. One morning we even started connecting the dots between the bikes and skateboards with a bit of rope. A quick knot around the frame and a couple of ‘“hold my beer” jokes later, I found myself holding the line behind Jeremy’s bike waiting for the slack to kick. Turns out that getting towed behind a dirt bike on a dusty trail is just as fun and as dangerous as it sounds. It’s the soft dirt that will get you, but with some momentum and a little hubris, you can ride straight through the rocks and roots. The key to riding skateboard wheels on these dirt roads is to lean heavily on your back wheels and commit lightly to every turn. Having the crew there to fire you up with every careening turn doesn’t hurt, either. It was an epic ending to our time in Mammoth before we said goodbye to Scott.
Three hours south of the Oregon state line, my van sat idling at the summit of another high-desert pass as Jeremy shared tales of an empty pool in an abandoned trailer park that was victim to last year’s rampant wildfires across the state. Heading southwest, as opposed to our current northern route, would add another day to our two-week mission, but we all knew what could come of that detour. Skateable empty pools in the Northwest are scarce, and you have to wade through the rumors and fool’s gold to fine one that’s worthwhile. So, when Jeremy told us it was special, we knew it was a no-brainer to head south again to check the pit.
The pool sat in the middle of a scorched, flattened land, and we knew its days were numbered. There were no signs of the mobile park that was once here. The surrounding area was littered with construction equipment encroaching the pool’s edge, and within a couple of days they would sink their steel jaws into it. The capsule-shaped pool was really good — not just good for the Northwest, but good by any seasoned pool rider’s standards. The surface was fast with smooth transitions. The coping was flush with the tiles, and the death box and ladder were in the right spots. We caught grinds and lines until dusk fell on the scalded concrete.
Across the field from the pool, cars flew by to destinations unknown, and nobody paid any attention to the group of degenerate skateboarders hanging out in the bordering field. But if they did see us, they would have seen a group of best friends and a day we won’t soon forget. We go on trips like this seeking memories that we can preserve for the future, like the ones we captured at Mammoth Park or Ryes, or by getting towed down the dusty trails behind a dirt bike – where we missed the turn and wound up somewhere better – and the ones that leave us doubled over in laughter. Now that it’s all over, we know we can always find those moments, faded and folded in our back pockets, ready to revisit for years to come.
