The Thredbo Session

Clint Allan brought his mates Jake Koia and Robbie Walker up to his pad in Jindabyne for a few weeks in late July to hang out. Good friend Charles Beckinsale knocked them up a few world class park features to have fun on. The Thredbo Session was the final session in two weeks of riding at Thredbo Resort.

Transfer Snowboard Magazine | Alex Cameron

Jake Koia showing off on another perfect Charles’ Beckinsale creation. Photo Jake McBride.

In late July, three of the heaviest hitters in snowboarding Down Under showed up to Thredbo to throw down on a perfect 65ft jump. There was something a little unusual about the jump though: Charles Beckinsale had built it overnight. Normally it takes days to build a jump, sometimes weeks. Sometimes the jumps don’t work straight away and need to be tweaked. So usually builders leave three of four days to make sure the jump is right. In this case, Charles didn’t have that luxury. Luckily he is one of the best park builders in the world and can push up a massive, perfect jump first go.

Robbie Walker sending it on Charles’ perfect jump. Photo Jake McBride.

Charles Beckinsale stayed up all night building this monster so he was in no state to ride. Instead he just stood around tired. Photo Jake McBride.

Charles Beckinsale Interview
How long did it take you to build the jump?
Well we had a cut out jump sitting there previously. So we pretty much buried that and pushed the new jump over the top of it. I started pushing at probably 3 in the afternoon and then pushed right through to about 1.30am. Then I started at 5am and worked through to 10am.

So you went back to Jindabyne in between?
Nah, I crashed at Thredbo. I was going to sleep in the cat but I figured that would be too gnarly.

Over the last three days of the shoot, how much sleep did you have?
Yeah no more than five hours a night then working on the mountain every other hour of the day.

Were you nervous having only one shot to get that jump right? How easy is it to mess up a jump?
It is pretty easy to get it wrong. I guess it is experience at the end of the day. If you’ve built a lot of jumps you know what works and what doesn’t. So I wasn’t that nervous – I just built the same style of jump that I have built over the last few years. If I had a bit more time I could have done a bunch more.

And you turned down the offer to ride it?
On three hours sleep I think it would have been a bit sketchy. I just sat in the cat and watched the boys throw down.

Highlights?
Koia was so close to landing the cab double. Robbie’s switch back nine was pretty awesome and probably Clint’s switch back one methods. But Koia’s doubles were the main event.

Clint Allan totally comfortable and styling out on the Thredbo jump. Photo Jake McBride.

Clint Allan Interview
How was Charles’ jump?
The jump was epic. It was really good. Charles did a really good job, as always. He’d built some other stuff for us earlier in the week. It was all just really fun shredding.

How was it having Robbie and Jake at your place in Jindy?
It was sweeeet. It was good to hang with the boys and ride with my mates. That was the first time I had ridden with those boys at home in a while, outside of having to do too much stuff. It was kinda nice to just cruise.

What ended up happening at the Guthega Dam?
It just rained for like 3 days.

So Robbie was going to drop it?
Yeah we were both going to drop it. But it just rained too much and all the water collected at the bottom so like 10 hours of digging just did nothing. And we spent $300 on rope and $300 on shovels. It was an expensive shut down.

Well lucky you had a good jump then hey?
Yeah. It was cool to see Koia try cab doubles. I had a really good time hanging out and chilling and hitting a solid jump at the start of the season.

Jake Koia, cab 10 double cork… almost. Photo Jake McBride.

Clint Allan with an effortless backside 720. Photo Jake McBride.

Robbie Walker, backside 900. Photo Jake McBride.

To see more check out this video that came out of the same session….

Click on any image to open the gallery from The Thredbo Session. All photos Jake McBride.

Thredbo forecasts,
snow reports and
live snow cams.