You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud too.: Tims Gap

We arrived at our usual time to the hill on the 29th, crack of noon and ran into Ian Wood and his Starship Troopers look-a-like girlfriend "Denise Richards." They were going out to this hip they built and we asked if we could tag along. Weather sucked, grey bird and the mountains running a solid 32" base. No problem for Ian and crew, they had spent the last two days building jumps and making lemon aid out of lemons.
A half hour huff up Cowboy Ridge from the backside, and we rode some deep dust on crust down towards the hip out by Hollywood Bowl. Then we came up on these dudes, Joe Bosler, Matt Wainhouse, Jordon Frager, Blake Hamm and Ryan Tucker. They had this monster built, and were doing the final touches before getting ready to send it. In "my" estimation, it was a solid 70'-75' (as I figured that I could drive 3 Summer Hummers in the space) and a 20' step down road gap. Landing was long and untouched, but...what about that crust?
Everyone helped out and side slipped the run way, then all of them took speed check runs at the beast, even Milo. Rock paper scissors later and Wainhouse was the glorious winner who got to go first. Dude came in hot as fuck, claiming a fs3 to start shit off, but that quickly turned into a off the toes 7 that looked insane. Over the road and down the landing he went, to a mellow tumble. Fragar, Bosler, Tucker all hit it with similar landing results, as well as Hamm who called it quits with a heel edge first to whip lash landing.
Wainhouse asked Milo if he was gonna chuck it and he said yes. Up the hill he started to walk until I called him off. Back down to me to talk about it and he convinced me that all was good. Back up he went, till I looked over at Scheuffele who was shaking his head no. Back down little guy came to one more talking. "Son, look at the size of this. THIS will end your season if you come up short. Is it worth it? No Launch, Banked Slalom, Minor Threat...no pow. None of it." "Dad, that jump at Hood this summer was bigger than this, and it was windy as hell. I cleared it everytime and I'm not worried about this. I can make it." "Ok, then." Off he went to run with the big dogs.
First try was the full arm flap thru the sky to butt check on the other side, with no problem clearing it. Straight jumps on something this size, and your flapping your wings, specially when your 95 pounds and 13. "One more Dad." To which he had a similar flight across the gap but came up with some sort of a half assed butt checked ride out landing. And that was it. Two and done and a great learning experience of building jumps, jump etiquette, rules of the road, and stepping his personal game up. Waino, Bosler and Ian invited him back out to hit the hip and when the weather breaks, we'll get up there. Thanks boys. These guys are proper elders helping to bring up the next dudes to carry the Stevens Pass torch.

The beast