I love Mt. Hood.   I first drove out to shred the legendary volcano 25 years ago, and working and riding at the summer snowboard camps helped me to launch my snowboard career.   I wanted to ride so badly that I lived in my car for 2 months in Government Camp (the small town at the base of the mountain) and learned the ropes of being a true snowboard dirtbag.    I didn’t have enough money to buy a pass to the mountain, so I hiked up to the camps every morning so that I could work as a volunteer digger, raking and salting and helping to hand dig the halfpipes from scratch in those early days.   Now they have machines that cut the pipe and a handle tow that will drag you up to hit the jumps and rails over and over.  The future is a wonderful place.

This is a collection the photos from my adventure to the volcano this summer, where I still camped out of my car,  washed off in the beautiful lakes, and had just as much fun as I did back then.   I rode in the 7th Annual RatRace,  shredded pipe with some serious legends and got the chance to shoot and ride with the crew of the US Snowboard and Freeski team during their night shoot at the Timberline ProPark.  Hood is good!  -Rob Kingwill