For the last 2 years now, every September, the Toronto boys have been organizing a hybrid skate/camping event. It’s an opportunity to get away from city life and disconnect, have fun skating, and skate amazing parks in small towns.

So after this post, we were off at 12:30 AM. Our car consisted of Denis Rabi, Vince Romain (Tiger), Yanis Khabet, and Myself. After six and a half hours, we were in Toronto, and we picked up Lari Dal Lago, who recently moved there from Montreal.

We were the first to arrive at Saugeen Shores skatepark, at noon the next day. We all took turns napping throughout the day since we were all running on zero sleep (aside from Lari who had much more sleep than the rest of us).

People slowly started rolling into the park and it was clear that we were going to have a fun day skating. The park was clean, round, and had obstacles of all sizes, a nice change from our parks in Montreal.

Yanis Khabet

While Yanis was hucking backflips off the booter, Tiger quickly got to work and hit this 270 Topsoul from the quarter and then flawlessly hopped back down.

270 Topsoul – Tiger

All day people were skating hard, I really wish I had gotten more photo’s of people skating, however I was busy doing so myself. The two guys who really stood out was Guy Crawford, who absolutely destroyed the park with ease and perfection, and AJ DeLong, with his flawless smooth skating.

The entire day I got to see some familiar faces that I don’t get to see too often and it was really nice to see the Ontario boys again, since we rarely see each other.

As the session started to wind down, more and more empty cans started to litter the park, which meant that people were still having a good time even though their skates were off. Shout out to Yanis for helping clean up all the cans and assorted junk on the skatepark grounds.

Hans Hey

Always the last one to keep going, Montreal legend Denis Rabi laced this fish up and around.

Denis Rabi – Fishbrain

After the session was done with, we all met up at the camp site afterwards. I had brought my Petanque balls with me, and decided to play a game with Sushi, and afterwards with Guy. The look on Sushi’s face when he saw the balls was priceless, as he is a French national who has been in Canada the last few years, and hasn’t played a game since.

Sushi

We had lots of fun before the sun set, including shooting pellet guns at empty, suspended beer cans. I remember being quite content when I actually hit one.

Watch out, I’m starting my BMX career

That night we had many drinks, many conversations (I think I mostly talked about hockey, at least thats what I remember the most), and many good times. Guy Crawford won the vote between us all as the best skater of the day.

Leon Basin, Shop-Task

It was a fun night, and a rough morning after, however we still managed to go skating afterwards. The weather wasn’t ideal, but I still had the pleasure of seeing Taylor Ritchie tear it up.

Dave Ghent

Also, I got to see the Wizard frames in action for the first time, I didn’t have a chance to try them but they look very fun to skate, a few guys had fun trying on Leon’s skates.

Better lace them tight!

My Favourite part of the trip was getting to see Tiger and Guy Crawford get re-united. Guy was Tiger’s skate coach at USD Camp in Europe 18 years ago, yes 18 years ago. The two had the weekend to talk and catch up and it was very fun to see them both enjoy themselves.

Tiger and Guy

It was a very fun trip for us and well worth the ~24 combined driving hours we had to do. I am excited for next years Park Camp, and I really hope more and more people will realize how fun it will be, and try to make it out!