Mountain Explorations - Omen Longboards

October 20, 2015

MOUNTAIN EXPLORATIONS

All Hell breaks loose as Jackson narrowly avoids taking out Morgan as Sam Galus captures the incident from the other side of the action. (This is one of the the first shots in the video at the bottom.)

The Omen Longboards team has had a summer full of awesome adventures, and has traveled to some amazing new hills exploring high and low around North America finding lots of awesome descents to ride their OMEN Longboards down. After traveling, the return to home life had left the skaters wanting more, finding themselves un-contempt with the hills that they had sessioned for years, and the mountain bombs that have been blown out due to years and years of constant downhill parties. 

Rain Daley out in front of Nate Blackburn filming. Photo by Sam Galus.


So, with a bottle full of courage, and a trusty Subaru Stallion, the Omen Team headed into the Radlands of Washington, to visit some old hills that had once proven to be too gnarly to skate. But with the developments of trucks, wheels, bushings, and decks, the level of riding is substantially higher than it has been in years past, and this has allowed skaters more control than ever before. This added control has allowed skaters to be able to push their limits and the terrain that they are able to skate. 


Morgan punishes some Scenic Debris, photo by Sam Galus.

Part of exploring new roads is the aspect of the unknown. No matter how many times you drive up and down a road looking at the features, examining the corners, and planning your lines, there is no substitute for actually dropping in and putting thane to the ground. Some of the corners that you thought you had to drift you can actually grip, just like this photo above of Morgan Owens surfing through some Autumn leaves with style. At first he thought he had to drift but after a few runs proved that he could smurf through the bend with out having to slow down. As the driver it was nerve-racking to watch my buddy send it into the unknown, but awesome to see him come out of the other side safely.


Rain, Morgan, and Jackson crushing a right in a line, with Sam on the sidelines snapping photos.

Even though these pictures show lots of control and some serious scenery, they were very hard to find, and they were incredibly hard to get to. The photo above is on a road that doesn't exist on any map, and can only be scene as a faint blur when using the satellite function of Google Maps. So when we drove 4 hours out to the hill and found some awesome corners, including this amazing dropping right hander it was a huge relief to be able to get out of the car and session. Even though there are no pictures of us bummed out, standing atop gravel roads that we had thought to be paved, we would strike out about 60% of the time when it came to roads that were skateable vs. not skateable. Our Mission Statement for this trip was, "If it is paved, we must rage." This allowed the mindset of the gang to be very willing to get out of the car and experience some dastardly roads.

Sam hanging out the window snapping pictures from the roof-rack.




Jackson chasing Morgan while Sam Shoots.

There are no pictures of Sam from this trip because he was consistently taking pictures, and getting the job done behind the lens, but there are some solid shots of Sam skating in the video, including the harrowing line he takes at 28 seconds.


Sam strapped to the roof-rack to get this banger angle of Morgan hunting down Rain through a dropping right hander.

Morgan and Rain managed to find a road that was super twisty and really fun to skate and were able to get a full run of them skating together down it. Here is a quick pic of Morgan aiming at the apex on an OMEN Spawn as Rain Daley starts to exit the corner. The roads were incredibly rough and the majority of them were chip sealed and very worn, so the wheels and pucks we had brought were dying faster on us than we had originally predicted. Here you can see Morgan laying down 4 lines of thane while drifting sideways.

Rain Daley turning toeside as Morgan turns heelside. Sam Galus photo laying on hood.

This photo shows the amount of dust and thane particles being flung into the air off of the wheels of Rain Daley as he drifts at a quick left hander. Rain was riding the OMEN Phoenix which features some unique bends that are often mistaken for a broken deck.



Here is the video edit from the adventure, produced by OHEF TV and Nate Blackburn.

The Music in the video was provided by local Seattle band Jackson Hang Glider, and the name of the song is "Heavy." 

-nate
love you, mean it

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