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The 2nd Annual Slocan Backyard Bowl Bash/Josh Evin Memorial Jam was almost a spitting image of 2011's bash, but it's quite the opposite of a bad thing. Minus the rain, it might have even been better than the year prior! More bro's can only equal more fun in my eyes. Photos by Ali Yaqubian.

Nate Lacoste is ready for the road.

Here was our fine stud of a automobile, The Blue Velvet. Boy, is she a sweet ride.

Pretty sure this song was played at least once every hour we were in Blue Velvet.

No trip in the Kootenay's is complete without a bear sighting. Here's Nate mimicking it's facial expression.

It took us 14 hours to get to Josh Evin's hometown of Castlegar, mostly due to 7 of us all on different eating/pooping/drinking schedules, and of course the token skate breaks. Adam Richter with a fat ol' wallie over two sets of barriers on some sketchy ground with road-trip-jello-legs.

Our master lensman Sheldon Barr and his lovely lady Julia.

Here's the rest of our convoy at a badass skate-spot pit-stop in Nowhere, BC.

Nate - BS noseblunt, with a truck to the face to follow.

You should try and see/skate this place one day, so rad. Adam Hopkins with a good hop up a natural euro gap.

Jamie Maley scoping out some shit that should be deemed deathly/unskateable, but if you know Jamie, you know that ain't his steez. he bruised his heels after one give and officially instated the motto that was to be used the rest of the trip: "We'll get it on the way back."

BLVD skateshops Kevin Kelly finds some scraps of nature that tell us we need to rock onwards.

Blue Velvet just loved giving us trouble on the way up. like I said, it took us damn near 14 hours to Castlegar. A drive that should realistically only take 8.

"Why'd we stop again?"

So we can chill and breathe some fresh BC air, thats why.

And so Jeff Muirhead (A.K.A. Mumbleshead) can walk his newly found pet.

"I dunno about this..."

"We'll get it on the way back mon, don't worry about it!"

We rolled into the thunderstorm just as it was getting dark, Maley said Metallica was up next, there was no argument. Jeff gets the party rollin.

We finally arrive in Castlegar only to continue to be hosted by a thunderstorm and the amazingly hospitable Tia. The thunderstorm began to overstay it's welcome well into the morning, So Kevin cooked up some delicious waffles with homemade whipped cream and fresh strawberries from Tia's garden.

Danny Hagge displaying how to properly douse your waffle in some grade A canadian maple syrup.

The Kevin's needed to work off all those waffle and beer calories. Tandem biking in the rain is obviously the best way about doing that. We visited Josh's grave to pay our respects and then it was onwards to Slocan for the main event (even though its still raining). After 3 hours of incessant rain some of the boys just couldn't wait a minute longer to get their shralp on. Here's a local hucking a back disaster on a fully soaked wall.

As the rain started to stop, Danny got to work with some man tools trying to get a session going.

The session began to get a roll on, only to be rained out again 20 minutes later.

Here's Nate with a switch FS Disaster as the rain starts to pick up again.

Some dudes were just too damn stoked to let a little rain ruin their session. Another local coming in with the fattest bs melon to fakie over the hip, in the rain. This dude won the demo.

And then the rain exiled us to the beer garden.

Damn rain. didn't bother Jamie's piling out one bit however.

Nor was it about to ruin Klinkhammer having a goodtime, poor bastard still can't skate because of his ACL. Get better soon Mike, we need ya out there.

The sun decided to show face for the last few hours of daylight! This time we put the kids on drying duty.

Ahh yes, thats what we like to see.

Savoring the sunlight, Nate scores FS noseblunt stalefish pop-in.

Sunday was a lake day. This right here is one of many reasons I was not ready to return to Vancouver.

And we'll bring this tale of travel to a close with Hopkins nick-namesake on a banana. Adam gained many nicknames on this trip: The Hopkins, Change Machine, and Hopshot to name a few. This is minutes after he woke up, and first thing he sees is Nate's carving into the banana. You are about to be warned: if you travel with artists, things are bound to get righteous in really, really weird way.

In the years to come hopefully their will be less rain, more homies, and then we'll be bound to have an even more badass time. Slocan loves skateboarders, camping, and good times.  It's worth the trek, we promise. See you next year!