In the early evolutionary years of newschool skiing, there was one beast of an event that brought together the leaders and young guns of skiing. In some sort of Darwinian process, the likes of Tanner Hall, David Crichton, Pep Fujas and Simon Dumont made names for themselves while the brick layers of skiing, like the Three Phils, JF Cusson and Vinnie Dorion, continued to push the sport forward. This hallowed event’s scientific name is: Parkasaurus.

Mercon gaps a dinosaur  p: Freeze.com (extinct)

Each year, from 2000 to 2003, Parkasaurus would appear at Snow Summit CA. Organized by FREEZE magazine (RIP), it was an event that brought together top skiers, filmers, and photographers to evolve skiing without competition. It was said in the historical pages of FREEZE, “Events like the U.S. Open and X Games establish the best athletes in a competitive environment, but Parkasaurus is a place where creativity oozes like spaghetti sauce from everyone’s pores.” It was a time before edits, so the creative beast could only be seen when films were released and photos were published. Many important milestones were reached at Parkasaurus events, like Tanner landing the first disaster switch 450 on 270 off, CR sliding the first 50-50, Jon McMurray backflip disaster, JF Cusson and Philou slaying the first rainbow and battleship rails, Crichton’s massive halfpipe airs, and the infamous transfer gap over an inflatable dinosaur.

Species: Tanner Hall  p: Freeze.com (extinct)

As we get nostalgic and unearth Parkasaurus, there is much to discover from evidence left behind in issues of Freeze and early Poor Boyz films like The Game, Propaganda, Happy Days, and Sterotype. First of all, we need to refocus on unifying park shoots again. By necessity, skiing park shoots brought every crew together in the early years.  Now, we have little niches and film crews shooting on their own, but nothing brings about more creativity than putting together an entire ski community. Yes, we have JOSS and a ton of park shoots for each film company, but none that brings all of them together without competition.

The next artifact we need to dust off and learn from is Parkasaurus photography. We have edits, interactive websites, and real time ski media, but all at the expense of good old photography. It’s amazing that you can watch events live, but nothing beats some high quality photographs. Parkasaurus helped produce some of the most iconic images in skiing history that ignited tons of careers. Now we just wait for the next dub variation in an edit and can’t appreciate the stopping of time, composition, and body position. I’m sure all the print mags that are dying would welcome an emphasis on photography again. Skiing needs memorable images for this generation to look back on, and in recent years I can’t remember many.  Lastly, we need to start jumping over more inflatable animals. Park shoots need to have a sense of humor. Without some fun it just turns into a huge ego trip and we’ve all seen what happens next.

Rinfret. USA! USA!  p: Freeze.com RIP

Parkasaurus went extinct during the final years of Freeze; but I have hope that the likes of Powder, Freeskier and Newschoolers can make a miracle happen and bring back this Jurrasic Park. Skiing needs to come together and put on a huge unifying park shoot that doesn’t have every little kid arguing for a month about who had a better edit; instead it stokes the shit out of all skiers to the point that there is no room for debate.