Vermont With Riley Harris: IDF Burke Mountain

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East coast skaters definitely add their own personal flair to the party. To sum up the after party for Killington: A guy superman dunk tackled the beer pong table, the South Africans blasted techno, there were some “in good fun” wrestling bouts, pretty sure Garrett Creamer decapitated the sex doll and the bonfire blazed all night.

The next day, as predicted, had heavy rain, and the organizer canceled riding for safety reasons, so we headed to Burlington to hang out. We tried to find a DIY skatepark and randomly stumbled across the Burton Snowboards HQ. They had a huge bowl around back.

Then we found the DIY park.

Lucky for us Steve Fitz-Maurice was kind enough to host us in his cabin in the mountains of New York State, so we headed there from Burlington. We rode a kick ass tiny ferry across Lake Champlain on the way.

After being lost all day we found the cabin and it turned out to be super rad and the river nearby was gorgeous.

It was now time to skate and explore in the period before the Burke Mountain World Cup would begin. It was awesome. We started with some rain skating.

We shot some guns.

Found a waterfall.

And skated some more.

Our time in New York came to a close and we woke up way too early to make the four hour trek to Burke Mountain. We arrived in the nick of time and suited up for runs. The view was epic on the mountain.

Jeremy LeChatelier from The hill is no joke. It’s fast, it’s narrow, and it’s lumpy. Frost heaves add “features” (copyright Wolfgang Coleman) to the hill, vastly increasing its difficulty level. Never have I been tested so hard on my skateboard.from Restless snapped some banger photos from practise and qualifications.

We booked ourselves another cabin, and I took a group photo of the crew. Pictured are skaters from Colorado, Team Mids, and behind the camera is me, the lone Canadian. It was a comfortable but a very strange building, filled with animal skins, hunting gear, and bizarre adult books and paraphernalia, not to mention close to twenty matresses. We had a suspicion the land owners frequently hosted “special” parties from time to time. You know what I mean right?

Before I knew it race day arrived. Only the top 28 from qualifiers made it straight into the open bracket, with four spots left to earn your way in through a repechage race. I managed to score a top ten time so that race was not part of my schedule!

Jeremy LeChatelier from Here’s ome photos from race day fromfrom Restless once again.

Full results:

Juniors: 1. Matt King 2. Alex Charleson 3. Ed Kiefer 4. Tyron Knight

Masters: 1. Niko Desmarais 2. Tom Wilson 3. Lee Cation 4. Mike Paproski

Women: 1. Marie Bougourd 2. Emily Pross 3. Melissa Brogni 4. Georgia Bontorin

Open: 1. Byron Essert 2. Dillon Stephens 3. Matt King 4. Norman Plante

And that’s it! The party went off and I’m headed back to work at Landyachtz Longboards in Vancouver, Canada. Until next time Vermont!

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