was my first ever big skate event I attended, and one of the biggest freeride events in Canada! Not only is it popular with the local Canadians, but it’s also a favourite destination for many US, and international skaters! After attending every GHF since 2015, minus one I missed due to the COVID lockdowns, this event feels like a family reunion with skating, and a rowdy one at that!
This year almost missed this event, due to some miscommunication issues with my original planned ride, but I was determined to attend, and made it a mission to get there for at least one day! It ended up being a over 18 hour trek with multiple rides with friends, charter buses, and some small down transit systems. Luckily I got as close as a town over from the location, and some old friends from my hometown came to pick me up for the last leg of the journey!
When I finally made it into the Rodeo Grounds, which is where the skaters all camp, and of course party, the party had just begun to ramp up! Being the last night of the event, many skaters tend to party late, and then have a chill day of skating the next day.
Normally I’m the type of person who likes to get a proper sleep before skating hard, but since I was only there for a day I figured why not stay up to see the fun! Honestly despite having a 18 hour day of travel starting at 5am, I was glad I stayed up and watched the shenanigans!
It’s always been a time of much drunken games, but this year they took it to the next level! Someone brought a couple mini bikes to the event, and what started with a few burnouts wheelies, quickly escalated into doing jumps over 4 people at one point! The jump wasn’t even steep enough, and at one point the bike was getting extra air off a rather portly fellow at the front of the jump! If you look closely you can see his arms and beer get hit by the bike!
Well since I got to the event late, I ended up working a half day because I had volunteered to help run the event, and they were short handed. That’s when they announced that due to lack of volunteers, they were going to close the top half of the course, and skate just the bottom half! I immediately said I wanted to get a full run in, so I quickly got ready. However I hadn’t skated since the last event, so I was a bit rusty, and hadn’t had a chance to warm up. Top that off with forgetting my memory card for my 360, and not having my usual safety gear, I was a bit nervous but decided to try to take the run anyway. That’s when the organizer called “last run”, which is a superstition among skaters to never call, and instead say “2 more, skip the last”. This is because downhill is such a dangerous sport, and we usually loose a skater at least once a year.
So despite all the signs telling me to take it chill, I decided to drop in with some friends, who went in with the fast skaters! I managed to make it just under halfway down cleanly, but then at the most dangerous point called Tight Rope due to how narrow the road gets, and I got cut off by someone who was trying to slow down by doing 180 slides in the middle of the road.
I ended up trying to slide when I was off balance, and messed up hard! Immediately I was thrown off my board, landing hip first on rough pavement, and not my knee pads!
Happy to say that despite bleeding from multiple wounds, I decided to finish the run while the adrenaline was still running! Managed to finish without another crash, but I could hardly move my hip afterwards, so I decided to just film the rest of the day.
That said, despite travel difficulties, lack of sleep, and crashing, I’m still glad I went! Here’s the reel that I made from the event, which has just passed 2k views, and appears on the SkateHive page! Make sure you boost the numbers by watching the full video, like, share, and save the video!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK-0pyOSwtu/?igsh=MW5qb2dtbWgyODl5cg==
