This weekend, we made our first trek of the season down to Hood River to kick off summer. They’ve been having as bad of weather as we have up in Seattle and so the locals were just as excited about the sunshine as we were! After a record-breaking 7 hour drive to the Hood, we couldn’t have been more stoked to wake up and see the sun and whitecaps on the river. On Saturday, the Columbia Gorge Kiteboarding Association held their summer Demo Day at the Sandbar. All of 12 different brands brought their gear, swag, and pros along to give the average kiteboarder the royal treatment. The CGKA was even smart enough to rent an inflatable bouncy castle for the kids to have some fun.

Axl was busy helping with the Slingshot demos.

As the sun started to go down on Saturday, the Slider Project boys brought out the Inept Films slider for the pros to show their stuff. Davey Blair and Jason Slezak from the Liquid Force team threw down as everyone expected. Andre Phillip from Cabrinha also wowed the crowd. But Dylan Thompson and Ruben Lenten from team Slingshot were the ones who really blew everyone away. We always see Ruben doing huge kiteloops but none of us knew how good he was at wake style tricks. He just looked so comfortable throwing handlepasses on a 5ft high, 20 ft long rail. Dylan Thompson never missed a beat either, and you could tell he was right at home on the slider.

That night, 2nd wind threw a huge party at the River City Saloon where tons of prizes were given away to those who bought raffle tickets to support the non-profit Slider Project. Jason Slezak even won the famed Liquid Force Subaru Slider car, but I have a feeling he won’t be taking that back to the east coast with him. They also previewed the new Bilderback film, Lines, at the Saloon. We were all so tired from being in the sun and 7m winds all day that we didn’t last long that night. We were glad we got some good sleep in because Sunday morning brought more 5-7m conditions with it. I tried to get out but couldn’t hold the 5m down. Jason and Wally sessioned all day long while the wind howled down the Gorge corridor.

Late Sunday afternoon, the Smith Slider limo finally made its long-awaited appearance. This thing was a monster! It looked like they took an early 90’s limo and put it on a 4×4 chassy.

Royal Kiteboarding was nice enough to step up to the plate and sponsor the kicker that ramped up to the limo’s slider. And our friend Pepi with 2nd Wind in Hood River also helped sponsor the event to get the limo over to the West Coast. This was an event that was not to be missed. It was such an awesome sight. I still can’t get over that we didn’t see more carnage considering how massive this thing was, and the fact that that they could only park it in the shallowest section of water.

All in all, we had an amazing weekend. Since I couldn’t even hold down a 5m kite, I didn’t get much water time myself. Normally, I would have been really bummed to have driven all the way down there just to sit on the beach, but not this time. There was so much fun stuff going on from demos to BBQs to the sliders and dogs running around everywhere that I couldn’t have had a better time!