“In 2016, we chased the first storm of the season to Togwotee Pass, WY. The plan was to ski on, in and through the Line Traveling Circus van in as many ways as possible. With a bit of trial and error, we successfully slid a rail in through the back and out the sliding door of the van. It was a very tight squeeze and one time I hit my head on the way out. I think Andy had better luck.” Photo: Will Wesson Words JAKE STERN SITTING Parry and Wesson had spent all of 2010 filming together, chasing the park rat’s version of Turns All Year—in their case including a back-yard wood-and-PVC-pipe setup. They’d skied the frozen-over Pass Lake early season at Loveland Pass, CO, and an indoor rail setup that resembled an airport security luggage roller at the SIA trade show in Vegas. Filming a nascent web series for $100 or $200 an episode (a total they split), they weren’t even close to covering their costs, but Parry and Wesson were kicking off a zeitgeist that two ski bums in search of a good taco wouldn’t fully appreciate until years later. This was the beginning of an endless sea of gas station hot dogs, tendon-bending rail tricks, and the dirtbag icon that was Line Traveling Circus. LTC has become the longest-running web series in skiing and has inspired countless low-budget edits in the You-Tube era. But Parry’s ultimate gift to the ski community has been the Tell a Friend Tour, where Parry travels and rides with kids at small backwoods ski areas, which has reminded an untapped community of young freeskiers that we are all connected. dejected on the curb outside of the Taco Shoppe in Government Camp, OR, Andy Parry and Will Wesson bantered about how far $2.50 will go. “The gypsy lifestyle is embracing me,” quipped Parry, buried among a pile of Full Tilt boots. It was summertime and the pair had managed to wrangle a little money and some lift tickets from Line Skis founder Jason Levinthal to visit Mount Hood and Windells Ski Camp. It was the first money Parry had ever seen for his skiing, and, he felt, a small sign that he had made it. skiing tricks came from rollerblading, which were stolen from skateboarding,” Parry says. “The only cool sport is skateboarding. We’re all lame.” Parry’s family didn’t spend much time in the mountains until 2001, when Parry’s Aunt Roberta, a Lake George skier in the ’60s and ’70s, took 15-year-old Parry skiing at little Bristol Mountain. He went a few more times that winter and spring, but didn’t really think much of it until fall of ninth grade when he met a kid in his homeroom class named Will Wesson. Wesson had been skiing for a bit longer, and Parry remembers him launching off a little snowgun whale tail on his 98-centimeter Mike Nick Pro skiboards and doing a 540 double Liu-Kang grab. It blew his mind—from that moment Parry dove headfirst down the skiing rabbit hole. The scene at Bristol was scrappy. Parry chased around the other park skiers there, befriending people like Ahmet and Giray Dadali. They would travel together to comps across the Northeast, enter-ing the open category at Mount Snow’s Mega Mother Hucker and eventually connecting with Shane McFalls (who would become the filmer and illustrator for LTC), filming short edits under the name “I Hate New York.” Once Parry gets an idea in his head he doesn’t stop. “It’s like a drug,” he says. “You start to try out a thought and then all of a sudden it becomes normal to spend six or eight hours moving snow around.” ANDY PARRY WAS BORN in 1986 and grew up in Victor, NY, just outside Rochester. His mom worked as a dietitian for the city hospital and his stepdad worked for a publisher. Before he became a Newschoolers denizen, he was roaming the streets of Victor on four wheels, finding pools to skate. “There’s been a lot of rollerblade hate and people don’t understand that most 042 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 16, Issue 3: Page 42
