In May of this year I finally made it to Montana--Big Sky Country. My buddy Tim has lived there for over a decade and has extended an invitation to me since he arrived. We always talked about doing an epic skate/camping trip, but I could never make it. Jobs, girlfriends, and various debilitating injuries kept the idea for the trip just that--an idea, like many others, unfulfilled and on the shelf until further notice. Well when I found myself living in Seattle, I said fuck it.
My girlfriend let me borrow her car for five days or so and after watching the Red Sox lose to the Mariners at SafeCo Field, I went home for some sleep and woke up, a little hungover, around 1am, made coffee and hit the road. I drove into the night, through the Wenatchee Pass, and hit Spokane, WA around 5am. Got out to skate Spokane's park and found some lurker/partyer/skater dudes sleeping in the middle of the deep end! I almost carved into their sleeping bag-covered heads! They basically had no choice but to get up and skate with me for an hour or so. It was a weird session but Spokane was sick and after bidding my farewells I peaced out and headed for Deer Lodge, MT, where I would meet Tim and his crew of skate droogs he had assembled for the camp/skate trip.
I made it to Deer Lodge by about Noon. I almost ran out of gas in the desert heat with no prospect of a gas station for fifty miles. Cruised in on 100mph cruise control fumes to meet up with Tim, Jed and Chad, three rippers from the Big Sky/Bozeman skate/snow community. Shakas, bro! One of their other homies ran the local A&W, so we were treated to some cheeseburgers and root beers before we hit the road. You gotta get a root beer if yer at A&W by the way...
One of the "weed men" on the trip, Jed was our fearless leader. His extensive knowledge of Eastern, MT due to his experience selling lemonade to Indians, was invaluable. Jed drove us all over in his Suburban (which was also my "tent"), drank beers and whiskey and always had a hilarious story to tell. Awesome dude with a kick ass attitude and skate/party ethic, Jed also treated us to Smashmouth and Cher technopop tunes at full volume as we rolled into Whitefish skatepark.
Chad had a unique style and was very interested in the architecture that each individual park we went to had to offer. He was psyched the whole time, down to wait out the rain and when he turned it on he ripped like a demon. Over here he's carving the helmet thingy at Polson. You had to go through this gnarly deer crossing to get to the helmet, so it was real impressive to carve it out with speed and style and make it back out into the main part of the bowl.
I was there, too. Tim Cowie took this photo at St. Ignatius and made it pretty in photoshop. St. Ignatius was probably the collective favorite park of our group. We went there twice and stayed there for like five hours each time. It's on an Indian Reservation and while we were there it was pretty much deserted. You're not supposed to drink there. There was this baby in diapers with a kool aid mustache. The locals said his family got drunk all day and just let him run around the skatepark by himself in his diapers. "Who's fucking baby is this?", we kept wondering.
Tim Cowie set the whole trip up. He planned the route, assembled the crew and skated harder and faster than anybody. He was definitely the premiere bowlsman in our crew and he kept his fists clenched the whole time. POWERFIST. When we were kids Tim told me that his ancient Cowie clan in Scotland used to come out of the woods and fuck shit up on villages with the torches and the ruthless pillaging and whatnot. Out Of The Woods!The days blew by like spinning polyurethane wheels and gusts of smoke, and after heading back to Big Sky for a few days of downtime, skating the mini ramp there and wrecking 1800 dollar mountain bikes, it was time to head back to Seattle. BALLS!
