Spring Break oh10 Part 2

Hoothoot's Thousand Mile Escapade

MEET HOOTHOOT. His feathers are polyethylene and his head doesn't swivel but he bears a striking resemblance to Bubo Virginianus, the Great Horned Owl, or coincidently, as our photographer Brian pointed out, to pokémon number 163, thus giving him the name Hoothoot. Hoot (you can call him that if its easier for ya) was saved from a life of bird-scaring failure in small town Wisconsin by Josh Seguin and has traveled with me ever since. He enjoys the nomadic lifestyle and has grown to have a great affinity for cameras, thus always trying to get into all of our shots. Other than his photo fetish, Hoot tends to be a well-mannered owl but with a bit of a vain personality, as you can see above, relentlessly striking majestic poses with his signature stare whenever there is a stray ray of sun glinting in his golden eyes.

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Salt Lake City is just under 500 miles from Bozeman, Montana. Earlier this year Phil and I had been to Salt Lake, but whenever we go to SLC it always becomes a strange situation due to dementia from the previous sleepless night. Maybe Salt Lake is cursed because our situation is inevitable: last year we arrived in the early morning, slept three hours in my car at rail gardens and got up at the crack of dawn to start skating, then had to drive to Montana that night. This year we decided to one-up ourselves on the sleep depravation, taking the early morning six hour drive from Colorado with Phil coming off one hour of sleep and me coming off zero, rather a night hike in -10 degree weather that ended in the first rays of sun. Obviously, insomnia and snowskating are a weird mix but the snowskate possibilities around SLC are endless, so I swore that I'd be back this year during a more normal sleep cycle.

And so it was decided: We would go to the great salt lake during spring break. However, our timeframe for the trip kept diminishing, falling victim to other spring break activities until we were left with only two days to squeeze in the 1000 miles, skateboarding, and fake snowboarding. Luckily for us, the bozeman photo wizard Brian Bee was down for the condensed trip, so Bjorn called up his friend Alice in Park City (just outside SLC) to secure some nice floor and couch accommodations and we were set to leave in the morning.

After adding snowskates to Hoot's habitat and picking up Brian, our gang of four was complete and we embarked, heading to our first stop in Whitehall, Montana. Whitehall is a tiny town with one of the worst skateparks in Montana, which meant we obviously had to skate it. The funny thing about Montana skateparks is that their worst park is on par with many of my parks back in Minnesota, so I felt right at home. Hoot got the most shots and enjoyed the session as much as anybody despite his unfortunate mishap with a skateboard, resulting in his severed beak. We didn't bother to give him surgery because the car was a lot quieter without his incessant hooting. Instead Brian just used his animal charming powers plus pain pills to keep the broken owl happy in the back seat.

After Whitehall we continued the skateboard part of our escapade 55 miles south in Dillon, Montana. Dillon is a fun, racetrack style park but the town is super grimey so if you ever go there, bring a broom. We had forgotten to bring ours so I was rewarded with a good slam in the first ten minutes after having a wheel lock up on a little broken piece of plastic shovel. Apparently the bowl is the proper place to throw garbage in the city park, so after that we generally stuck to the mini area. Hoot woke up from his pain reliever-induced sleep and came over to join the fun. Some of the little kids at the park weren't too sure about having an owl watch them skate, always making sure to throw a cautionary glance in Hoot's direction before dropping in. Fortunately for them, Hoot knew he had to be well-behaved in order to get that scrumptious mcchiken and mcdouble waiting for him after the session.

After skating we had to do a little training for snowskating, so here I am going to share with you one of the most important secrets of my training regimen, specifically how to condition your entire body for high ollies. If you read my starfish magazine interview, you know that I attributed basketball to my ollie height, however what I didn't tell you is that learning how to dunk owls will increase your pop by at least 233%. If you take this training one step further and learn to dunk over similarly dressed opponents, then go ahead and add another 57%. Oh and if you complete your dunk, make sure you have your opponent carry your skateboard home for you, in proper double-mallgrab position just to humiliate them since you just increased your ollie height by almost 300% and they just got owl-dunked on!

Now that we had trained and were fully ready for any spot on the trip, it was time to make the haul to Park City to sleep. And yes, for the first time in the history of SLC snowskate trips, I got a full night of sleep. Upon waking, we promptly left and drove into SLC to get breakfast and start making attempts to fake snowboard at famous real snowboard spots. Unfortunately, the city was as predicted; dryer than a loaf of burnt toast. We went to Rail Gardens anyway to have a morning walk and grieve over the lack of snow. If you've seen True Color you might recognize this rail. Hoot decided to dress like a real G since we were in the city.

Fortunately it takes less than half an hour to drive into an entirely different climate from SLC. Ten miles up Little Cottonwood Canyon are ski resorts Snowbird, Alta, and across from the skier-only mountain, the famous snowboard wallride that we intended to slay. Luckily for us, the gas saver hides nicely behind snow banks, giving us an all-day hidden parking spot. Suddenly it was winter again. The wind was whipping and the snowflakes were falling. Bjorn decided that Hoot was not dressed appropriately so quickly geared him up for the weather, though he soon shedded the hat and showed us that he is at home in any climate.

The wallride looked as if had not been hit all year so the work required was daunting. We considered not even setting it up, but Bjorn and I are can't pass up famous snowboard spots. Somewhere in the five hours of building, we met Rick Howard. Not the skateboarder, but the mouse. Rick is a rather small mouse who is possibly the bravest mouse I have ever met. Not only does Rick search for food in plain view of an owl, but he also seems to enjoy the human touch, or better, the double human touch! Honestly, Rick made the trip for us. If it weren't for the mouse being so keen to one-finger petting, the morale that day would have declined a lot quicker than it did. One-upping snowboarders without bindings is always a great accomplishment in snowskating, but sometimes we tend to bite off more than we can chew, like putting a whole loaf of gum in your mouth, it doesn't usually work quite as well as you would like. So was the case with this spot. The speed required to actually make it near the top of the wall sent us looping out of the tranny as our legs buckled underneath us, forcing us to settle for wallrides half way up the wall, and condemning us again as fake snowboarders. Once again, we just had to come to the realization that we were fake snowboarding and the riding became fun again. Don't ever hesitate to call yourself fake. It's fun. Enjoy these photos of our fake trip!

We left nearly eight hours after arriving, soaking wet, super cold, hungry, and slightly disappointed in our wallride performance yet happy to have ridden another snowboard spot free of bindings and very happy about our new friend Rick. If only he would have let us take him home! Anyways, as I drove the eight hours home into the night, Brian, Hoot and Bjorn slowly fell asleep and the gunshots and snare hits of endless Jeezy beats reminded me of home and lulled me into a power-driving trance, putting us right back in Bozeman before we knew it, less than two days later with 1000 miles and 1000 memories from a fantastic fake trip!

Whitehall photos by Bjorn, Alan and Brian, All others by Brian Bee

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