DARRAH REID-MCLEAN | THE SPOT

To be honest, most of the spots I hit have more of a story than this one. Usually, there's creative speed generation involved, multiple bails, kick outs, a couple of freakouts and a few tears. This spot went remarkably smooth.

My good friend Kevin Griffin had encouraged me to come to Nelson last winter, but I was hesitant. I wanted to link with him but was unsure about Nelson's spot selection and snow conditions. My theory with filming is that once you hit your lowest of low points, that's when the magic starts to happen. Before Nelson, I'd hit that point on the first film trip of the year to Ontario, so I was in eager anticipation of potential magic. I panic-packed my car and drove the 10 hours from Whistler to Nelson. 

When we arrived, the snow had melted significantly and there was an icy dirty crust layer in many places, but some areas were still okay. After a few failed spot choices, Kevin suggested we go to this kink rail he had set up in a park just outside of Nelson. I had absolutely no interest in hitting a kink rail, but we were running out of options and daylight, so I decided to give it a try. Kevin had engineered a drop-in and in-run that would have made the shovel god Ben Bilocq proud. We basically just had to clean up the take-off and it was ready. The kink was more aggressive than I expected—it bucked me into one good face dive to the stairs. But after that, it was pretty smooth sailing, and I think it's pretty special that my long-time friend and fellow Winnipegger took the photo. —Darrah Reid-McLean