As the edit we posted a week ago showed, the Denial team was recently at Camp Woodward. Besides taking their own advice to GO & ROLL, the team shot pics for their Fall 2009 Lookbook and undoubtedly had themselves a swell, if not hotter-than-satan’s-own-sauna, time. Photographer Andrew Nemiroski was kind enough to share these shots of the team in action, and since Ross Anthony’s article about the week finally showed up, we’ve got that in here too. — ONE

This summer, as some of you already know, I rode a motorcycle to Alaska and back. I had an amazing time and saw many new and exciting things. My last stop before arriving back home was Camp Woodward. Woodward holds a very special spot in my heart. I’ve spent every summer there for the past decade and have met some of my best friends there, including my fiancé. I couldn’t think of a better way to end an amazing trip other than relaxing for a week at my home away from home.

I arrived on a Saturday and as soon as I pulled in I saw Alf and Koliner. It didn’t take me long to find Killgore, Montre, Cameron and Ortiz, and before I knew it we were thrashin’ hard.

Majette, Bolino and Schmidt all arrived on Sunday. With three more people, sleeping in Bud’s Barn was going to be impossible. Ten guys and only three twin beds don’t add up too well. We had known this ahead of time and planned on camping close by. Wes Shepman (Wake’s dad) was nice enough to let us use their tent and some camping gear. This tent was huge. The box said “10 person” but I think it was more like a 62 person tent. There were different rooms and you could even stand up in it. If you can’t tell by now I was pretty stoked on the tent. I had been sleeping in a backpacking tent since May so this was truly a treat.

Monday is usually the hardest day to skate at camp because there are 700 other little campers that also want to skate. Since it gets so crowded I usually spend my Mondays in the cafeteria. Grilled cheese is by far the best meal of the week. Willie Trebach also came up Monday for a couple days so it was good to see him. Tuesday we left camp for a bit and went down the street to a little watering hole. We were going to swim but got scared off by the locals. What were we thinking? Fun outside of camp? Yeah, right! Wednesday was spent skating and just relaxing. Thursday Richie Velasquez and Matt Mickey showed up for the AIL event. Bennett threw some steaks and chicken on the grill and cooked for all of us. Delicious!

Every Friday at camp, afternoon instruction is replaced with a contest. It’s always a good time to see all the rollerbladers from that week skating the same park, and this week had the most inline campers of the summer.

Saturday was the AIL contest in Lot 8. It was a long day, but it’s always fun watching future professionals do their thing. Richie is doing big things for our sport and it was good to see that many kids come out. It amazes me how much people progress from year to year and Wake Shepman is no exception. He ended up walking away with a hat trick. (park, vert and best trick). Congrats, Wake.

Saturday night I packed up and went the rest of the way home. It was so good to finally have a roof over my head and a bed to sleep in, but my Alaskan odyssey would not have been complete without a trip to Woodward. — Ross Anthony