HOLY BOWLY | GALLERY RECAP & VIDEO
WORDS & PHOTOS ROB LEMAY | VIDEO COURTESY OF SNOWBOY PRODUCTIONS
The Holy Bowly is an event unlike any other in snowboarding. It’s a labour of love from Snowboy Productions’ team and owner Krush Kulesza. It’s not a competition, but more alike to a bonus level in a video game.
This was my third Holy Bowly and the best yet. I was invited/invited myself to stay at the Dinosaurs Will Die house. It was a jam-packed house with roughly 15 or so boarders. There was no shortage of quality good times and hijinx. Thanks again to Geno and Jeff.
I drove down from Pemberton, BC to Mammoth Lakes, California with Keenan Filmer and Nick Elliott. After a long 19 hour drive, we showed up to the house with a fully stocked bar and some rowdy Dinos ready to get fired up. A bit of Cee-lo, and a healthy amount of liquor and we
A snowboarding event built around flow and transition riding, it takes around a full week of work or “quality hand jobs” to create almost endless lines full of volcanoes, skate bowls, and some shapes that I’m still trying to figure out what to call them. It takes some time to get a grasp of the lines; every run you see or find something new. The workload is shared with an hour rake at the end of each day by everyone.
You get to ride 10am-3pm, and most nights there’s something to get everyone together. This year there was bowling one night, music by Russell Winfield & Mikey Leblanc, and midweek out of nowhere, Jeff Holce found a street spot. Jeff and 27 of his friends set up the spot and he got clipped up! Yup, 27 people at the spot. It was a party for Jeff.
The last night, the Dino house had an ender party thrown by Darrah Reid-McLean. Darrah had been saving herself for the last night, but by ten o’clock, during the second round of Settlers of Catan, it wasn’t looking good for her party. It looked like it might’ve been an early night, but Darrah is a persistent human, and she prevailed. There’s was an old school scrap between Marty Vachon and Nick Elliot, 90’s jams by DJ Desiree, mystery Darrah margaritas, Keenan sucking face, and questionable plank offs.
The night activities are fun, but in no way overshadow the days of bonus level boarding. It’s like the best side-hit runs with concrete skatepark precision flow. It’s an unimaginable amount of work and love given to a community of snowboarders. It’s hard to explain it to anyone who hasn’t been. To me, it’s a yearly reunion with a part of my snowboard family. Thank you to Krush, Smiley, all the diggers, Jeff, Geno, Hene, and everyone who helped make it happen.
