The Compound & Old Friends

When I was 13 or 14 this kid moved into my neighborhood and started riding the same bus to school with me. For some reason we were instant enemies, coming very very close to blows many times. But our little brothers became fast friends and pretty soon for some strange reason we put our differences aside and became friends as well. We discovered we had remarkable parallel lives. I’m 5 days older than Akoni and his little brother is 5 days older than my little brother. Our fathers both fought in the war and then both died as civilians around the same time. Weird stuff like that. We became Inseparable for most of High School. A week after we both turned 18 we moved away from home for the first time, almost 5000 miles, to Louisiana. We had adventures and heartbreaks lived a lot and came back to Alaska 9 months later. Then he moved to Hawaii in 92 or 93, I can’t remember exactly when. We stayed in touch, I visited once. But we haven’t seen each other more than a handful of times in the last 15 years.

But now he lives in LA as well. Life is strange that way. Akoni has spent more than the last decade as a pioneer in the sport of Mountain Boarding. If you don’t know what that is I posted pictures. Yesterday he was out at the RedBull Compound with some friends so Dani and I went over to say hi. We hadn’t actually seen each other in 4 or 5 years. The Compound is this “Oasis” of sorts for Motocross, Mountain bike and other Action Sports athletes, hidden way back in a valley in the desert not far from where we live. It’s private and massive and very cool. The pictures I shot only show about 5% of the place, maybe even less. It’s a pretty awesome training ground for people that like to break themselves. It was all I could do to keep Dani from strapping on the pads herself.

We hung out for several hours and watched them jump and build more jumps. It was very cool to see my old friend flying. So good at this sport he has pursued with such vigor. It’s hard to find more words than that. Hopefully you understand.

The photos are in the GALLERY.

- Staley Out