Be Here Now: The journey to Sacred Summer

Get in the Van!

Spiral Wax hit the road to kick off the summer on the solstice, embarking on a fun filled weekend of summer snowboarding, skating Oregon parks, river swimming, go karting, and good vibes with the homies. Wax wizard Tim Karpinski was joined by filmer Jonah Schacter from Dreamforge Productions and picked up spiral skate team rider and NW sales rep: Joey Carnera to come along for the ride.

Life’s best moments happen out of coincidence. And that is how our Spiral road trip began on the Summer Solstice. What began as a trip to film skateboarding for The Sacred Summer Collection and the new Curb Magic Skateboard Wax quickly turned into an epic adventure amongst friends that included snowboarding, hiking up a mountain, swimming, go-karting, chickens, skateboarding, and all time vibes. No better way to begin summer. 

Tim and I pulled up to Timberline’s parking lot and were bewildered by the crowd, only to realize we had arrived at Mt Hood on the summer solstice, which apparently was June 20 this year not June 21st. No one sent me the memo. Mt. Hood is home of the notorious Solstice Party where hundreds of skiers and snowboarders hike from the top of Palmer life to Illumination Rock. It was a migration of epic proportion. Exhausting, but well worth it to feel the collective energy of the community coming together to end one season and being a new one. 

Shout out to George Sanidas of Timberline for hooking us up with tickets so we could enjoy the day and test wax. 

After our day at Hood we descended the mountain into Hood River to meet up with Joey Carnera and Jason Hume of Olio Northwest, Spiral’s sales reps. We pulled up to Jason’s home and were immediately greeted by poolside chilling and delicious tacos. After dinner we quickly got the toys out and began skating a curb with the new Curb Magic and filming Joey absolutely crushing the small set up. We buzzed around on go karts around the neighborhood and kept the vibes rolling. I kept the camera rolling the whole time to capture these unforgettable moments as the sun set behind us. Nothing more nostalgic than driveway skateboarding with the homies. I felt like I was 12 again.

The next day began with filming around the pool because we had an unbelievable setting that was the perfect backdrop for the Sacred Summer Collection. After a morning of filming we headed to the Hood River skatepark to capture Joey crushing the bowl, grind some ledges, and test the new Curb Magic. After an hour or so we continued on toward our final destination of The Courts in Portland. We took a small detour over the Bridge of the Gods into Joey’s home town, Camas Washington. He took us to his old stomping grounds at the Camas Skatepark and then we took a dip in the river. Then it was time for food to which Joey took us to Top Burger for some classic burger joint vibes and better food. After we continued on to Portland after a quick pit stop at Joey’s parents house to drop off his dirt bike. 

Finally we made it to Portland. Our first order of business was going up Mt Tabor to enjoy a lovely go skate day hill bomb. We got so much good footage here, personally nothing is better than hill bombing. Riding that fine line of freedom and chaos. Doing a follow cam hill bombing really leaned into the chaos. From Tabor we headed to The Courts for Tactics’ Go Skate Day event! Tim set up a booth to debut Curb Magic to the world. The vibes were high. People were throwing down. It was so fun filming all these different skaters trying their hardest trick. The bump to bar session was all time! The day finally came winding down and it was time to roll back to Bend. 

What a fulfilling 48 hours we had just spent. Filming, hanging, bantering, and getting to know each other better. I was fully exhausted, but I could’ve gone for more if we needed to. Going back through all the footage and making the Sacred Summer Collection Video brought a smile to my face. Even though the trip had just happened the memories were fully cemented as a trip I will never forget. Getting back these 35mm images gave me the smile again. These are the memories that make summer sacred. That feeling of being a kid again running around the town with your friends doing exactly what you want. Be Here Now!!! 

LISTEN TO THE SACRED SUMMER PLAYLIST HERE: SUMMER