Module: gallery_album
Item: SmashLife2014
Displays the photo gallery for a selected Gallery Album.Have you ever seen the movie “Heavy Metal Parking Lot”? It’s a documentary set in 1986, in Largo, Maryland, at a Judas Priest concert. It’s about metal-heads partying in the parking lot before the show. The first line in the movie comes from a blond kid in a sleeveless t-shirt: “I’m Dave, I’m 20 years old, and I’m ready to rock.” Then a long-haired guy starts talking about legalizing drugs.

Lot 3 at Alpental, WA, was kind of like that this past weekend, but for snowboarders in 2014. Preparing for something legendary, something loose, something a little grimy and a little beyond the ordinary. I’m sure anyone trying to document the scene would have found just as passionate and just as weird a subculture as the snowboard tribe gathered there for the A Rob Smash Life! Banked Slalom. Maybe a few more beards than mustaches, and a few more vans than muscle cars. Humans with slightly earlier bed-times and earlier alarm clocks. Or at least the latter. A lot of Montanans, Washingtonians, and a handful of folks from other ends of the Pacific Northwest and the USA in general. A simple group, really, whose minds couldn’t have been further from the road to Sochi stuff going on in other parts of the country. A group gathered to celebrate the life of our good friend Aaron Robinson, and rip a few turns. Raise money for the A Rob Plant A Seed Project. Maybe listen to a bit of music. Party in a couple RVs. Sleep in their cars, or out under the stars.

When I arrived on Friday afternoon Joe Pope and his Summit Parks crew had done most of the heavy lifting already. Eighteen berms were roughed into the steep trees lookers left of the Armstrong Express and all that was left to do was smooth out a few kinks, add some fencing, and rip a few test laps. It was t-shirt weather, with an inversion warming the alpine while low-lying urban environs fought through a foggy chill. An ideal day to be in the mountains. The course was sketchy and fast, but manageable.

Then, sometime between the last beer of the night and the first light of dawn, the inversion lifted. The course hardened. Eighteen turns of tight, technical flow became rutted, and downright frightening. But we still rode. Still laughed, cheered and heckled. It might have even been better that way—finding joy on a day when most snowboarders would have thrown in the towel before ever lacing up their boots.

When The Riot Act took the stage to introduce a bit of get up and rock into the evening, most obliged. Danced and sang past midnight. Reveled in a cultural moment that some may not understand, and the fact that it’s probably better that way. Sleeping in the parking lot to risk an icy snake luge through the trees? No other goal than celebrating the memory of a lost legend while making a few new memories of our own? Yeah, that’s snowboarding. To me at least. A group bound together by more than superficial means. A group willing to live a little beyond the edge of normal in pursuit of something greater than ‘normal’ could ever provide.

A huge thanks to Joe Pope and the Summit at Snoqualmie Parks crew for keeping everything rolling through the weekend, Sarris McComb on the start gate, Shane Stalling, Evan, Stumpy and The Riot Act, and all the diggers, riders, and curious onlookers for making the A Rob Smash Life Banked Slalom a reality. Aaron wouldn’t want it any other way.

RESULTS

Girls

1. Isabella Gomez

Boys

1. Keala Cole
2. Austin Buza
3. Matteo Sultane
4. Oliver Belland Jr
5. Maximus Loeb

Women

1. Sarris McComb
2. Mallory Sullivan
3. Robyn Borneman
4. Jacqui Shaffer
5. Erin Olmstead

Grumpy Old Men

1. Marcel Dolak
2. Kimo Cole
3. Blue Montgomery
4. Kris Melton
5. Jason Loeb

Men

1. Todd Kirby
2. Andy Bergin-Sperry
3. Kyle Miller
4. Jay Kelly
5. Chase Matteson

Click here for full results.