• Part 1: Intro
• Part 2: Arrivals
• Part 3: Adam’s Story
• Part 4: Euchre
• Part 5: Snow Day
• Part 6: Departures

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It was­n’t a great day for land­ings, but it was per­fect for hang­ing out on the hill, soak­ing up the win­ter sun, and goof­ing around.

If I’m intro­duced to a good song at a moment in time, I asso­ciate it with a spe­cif­ic mem­o­ry. At Sandbanks last year, it was Eric blast­ing Yellow Ledbetter by Pearl Jam before the park war­den stopped by to gave warn­ing. This time it was 93 Till Infinity by Souls Of Mischief, a track with a true 90’s beat. It’s easy to deduce the gen­er­al age of the group from the music; the songs that Eric plays on his stereo are the ones that the Bancroft group grew up lis­ten­ing to.

It was the mid­dle of win­ter for us, but on that one week­end, it felt like the begin­ning of spring. We donned our vests, hood­ies, and sweaters for runs down the hill. The tem­per­a­ture was just under 10°C, and there was no need for heavy down-filled coats. The scenery is beau­ti­ful. No one around, no author­i­ty telling us what we can and can’t do. The per­fect week­end get­t­away.

As Aaron not­ed, Matt’s abil­i­ty to jump on a board and nat­u­ral­ly carve up the hill after an extend­ed snow­board­ing hia­tus is telling of his board expe­ri­ence in gen­er­al. The one suc­cess­ful land­ing I got of Aaron seems tiny com­pared to the jumps that Matt and Eric do, but he assures me that it’s a lot steep­er (and scari­er) from the top of the hill than it looks at the bot­tom.