We live in the shadow of Mt. Baker. It's a snowboarder's dream up there.
It's Ben's dream up there. He spent his day up there today and brought home a couple video clips of his exploits. He came in the door with the video camera in hand and a big grin on his face. He looked at Tina and told her she couldn't see it. Then he said he wasn't sure if he could show it to me either. But that only lasted a second, he was too excited to show it off. There is a spot where people can jump over the road that goes to the ski area, Ben calls it "The Road Gap". He brought home a copy of a snowboarder's magazine the other day called Frequency that had a great shot of a snowboarder taking the gap on it's cover. Ben's done this jump before, but I think after seeing it on the magazine cover he wanted to get a better record of it. He had a friend hold the camera for him and here's the result. He's editing up a much longer video of a bunch of other crazy jumps as well, but I made him let me post this one on here now. The clip shows it three times - the middle clip is slowed down...



It was snowing hard when they shot the clip, with a so-so camera. YouTube isn't particularly kind to the video, but I think you get a pretty good idea of just how crazy Ben is!

So I googled around a bit and discovered that this jump is quite legendary in the world of snowboarding. There was quite the article about it in the Seattle Times last month that doesn't make me worry any less about my son that flies! To read it CLICK HERE.