There’s something beautiful about a long day of mountainboarding on dirt. One can’t help but notice how the dust in the air from an aggressive powerslide appears to dance in the light of a setting sun. Even the sound of your wheels rolling over the dry crumbling earth has an almost musical effect. Is all this real or is it simply the result of too many wrecks. You decide.

There are many of us who have developed a strange kind of love for the dirt we ride. It seems odd as most humans seek to avoid dirt. The mountainboarding dirt lover, on the other hand, searches for it. Hard packed and sun-dried, soft and crumbly, or wet and muddy, all its varieties are welcomed and equally embraced.

Dirt provides a ride like no other substance can offer. It moves and shifts under your wheels almost as if it has waited its whole existence for the sport of mountainboarding to grace its surface. Its sensitivity to weather make it ever changing and often unpredictable. Sun, wind, and rain gradually mold our playground in order to provide us with new riding opportunities.

Let us not forget our good friend Dirt. As we mountainboard its dusty surfaces, let us not consider it to be simply another peice of earth to ride. Surley it is more. It is Dirt. Let your apreciation reflect in your ride as you carve your tracks into its surface. If you wreck, take a moment to enjoy the cloud of dust that applauds your efforts.

Perhaps these thoughts really are brought on by a few too many wrecks. Whatever the case, to those who share similar feelings, for us the ride is all the more enjoyable. So grab your mountainboard and your gear and go out to thank your local dirt.

Most of us have a favorite spot that we ride at again and again. While this is perfectly fine, there is a whole new sensation to be experienced by mountainboarding a new place. It’s all about the element of surprise.

We all know that the more you ride a specific spot, the better you get at it. You get to know every turn and drop. You know what sections have good run-off and which sections don’t. You can almost ride it with your eyes closed.

Well it’s time to shatter your comfort zone. It’s time to ride somewhere you’ve never ridden before. It’s time to face the unknown.

There’s something almost eerie about strapping in at the top of an unknown drop. Find a nice long stretch to really get that mystery factor flowing.

Even if you mapped it out in your head as you hiked up, you still don’t know exactly how the terrain will effect your ride or how the ground will respond. Excitement and uncertainty twist themselves into a knot of adrenaline that seems to lodge itself in your chest. The mind is anxiously awaiting answers to its many questions.

This flood of emotions won’t discourage you however, from strapping in and making the drop. For the mountainboarder, these feelings are soon converted into an intensely enthusiastic energy, better known as “a wicked stoke.”

Riding the unknown is an adventure in itself regardless of the outcome of the ride. You might go right back to your old spot for your next session, but you’ll take a piece of your adventure with you. You’ll be more open to new things. You’ll think more outside the box, keeping your riding far from stale.

Face the unknown. The wicked stoke awaits.

It was one of those cloudy, drizzly days that sometimes makes you question whether or not to go mountainboarding. For many of us, this brief hesitation is quickly resolved with the realization that the best thing to do with a bad day is to make it a mountainboarding day. So having come to this conclusion myself I threw my gear in the rig and headed for the mountains.

I had a spot picked out that I hadn’t yet ridden. It was a place I’d been wanting to test out for a long time but had never gotten around to it. Today, despite the nasty weather, seemed like a great day to try it out. It would soon turn out that I was wrong.

As I drove up the dirt road toward the beginning of my hike, I began to notice a thick fog that was gathering. Visibility only reached about 50 meters. The fog continued to gather after I left my vehicle and had started hiking.

The long cutback trail climbed upward into the clouds. It was not this trail that I was planning to ride but the valley it led to, a place I hadn’t been for a long time. By the time I came over the ridge in to what was to be my new testing grounds, I could hardly see a thing; visibility had dramatically reduced. The fog was thick enough to bottle and the moist air formed drops that fell from my helmet.

I decided to take a quick ride on the gentle sloped area I found myself in. For the purpose of safety, it would be good to get a feel for the new terrain and to see how the poor visibility affected my ride. That turned out to be a very good idea.

“I’ll just ride for about 20 meters,” I told myself as I starred into the fog. I strapped in and carved my way down the mossy terrain. Suddenly the sound of rushing water erupted into the air. I stopped. Only two things, to my knowledge, can cause a sudden sound of rushing water in an area that was silent just moments before. One, a creek, river, or ocean has magically appeared out of nowhere. And two, (and this one is more likely than the first) the water was already present but previously blocked somehow. Translation for my situation: edge of cliff.

Leaving my board I took a few steps into the fog. Sure enough, a cliff’s edge was hiding itself just beyond my strapping point. After this I decided to had back to my vehicle and find a new spot to ride.

I think there are times to ride in the fog, at night, or on strange terrain. Raising the difficulty level and adding new elements are what help us progress as mountain boarders. The key, however, is to know when to turn back. We make a lot of decisions as we’re riding and it’s important that those decisions help us to progress as well as remain safe enough to continue to enjoy mountainboarding.

For those of you who haven’t been following the last four video postings of Ryane Longboard’s, “LongTreks”, we’ve been following a few of our mountainboarding cousins, longboarders as they travel 1500 miles by longboard.

Here’s is Rayne Longboard’s official intro to episode 5:

“Skateboarding uphill for 3 days proves an actual possibility—now time for some Downhilling! This episode includes bad pavement, diarrhea, scrapes and bruises, and the first showers taken in 4 days (Electric shower. Whoo hoo!)—Aaron falls in love and quits the trip.”

Stopping for a quick break I took the opportunity to survey the constancy of the dirt road I would soon be riding. The road was originally a mining road that served as a passage through the mountains. The natural layer of hard packed dirt from recent rain was littered occasionally by a protruding boulder or a scattering of crushed gravel. Earlier on in the road I had found myself walking over a thicker level of gravel, most likely an recent improvement to the old road.

I capped my water and pulled on my pack and after situating my mountainboard that was secured to my pack I continued up through the pass. My intentions for choosing this place for my World Mountainboard Day adventure was for the ride. Of course it’s always for the ride but on this day I wanted to focus especially on the ride, the flow, that connection between rider and earth.

The road was somewhat steep at parts but for the most part wound gently through the surrounding hills and peaks. The hike was quiet, except for the rocks occasionally grinding against each other under my feet.
Soon I reached the highest point of the road beyond which descended further into the pass. Marking the end of my journey and nestled in the hills was a small lake. Fed by trickling streams that tumbled down from melting snow and distant glaciers, the waters still surface seemed to reflect the solitude of its setting.

It was at this lake that I geared up. I pulled on my pads and prepped my gear. The actual descent hadn’t even started yet but already the gnar was working it’s way into my blood. The awesome scenery that sprawled out around appeared littered with possible ride spots. Having spent extra attention in surveying my descent path and it’s terrain I felt connected with the ride already-it was mine.

After a couple adjustments after initially strapping in I found just the right tire pressure in order to slow my ride to where I wanted it. The entire mountain was mine, only a couple of confused marmots witnessed my ride. While the ride was somewhat slow, I maintained enough speed to be able to enjoy that awesome sensation of the carve; the exchange with gravity and momentum, the careful balance between too much and too little force at the peak of each carve.

Although my World Mountainboard Day was spent on a solo adventure, I was united by riders from all over. Everyone doing their thing. I think that’s the what makes mountainboarding so gnarly; everyone has their own thing but yet on World Mountainboard Day we can all still unite.