Ok, i've been thinking about this for a while. It's one of the best places i could possibly think of to have a jam. It has some of the best places to do parkour i can think of. There is free back woods camping, which means all you have to do is bring a tent, and you can hike out and camp. This means we can all have easy shelter. It's close to a town with a market, this means we can easily go into town and refresh supplys. We could stay there multiple days no problem. It's not to far out of the way for alot of people.
Anyways now a little bit about the actual landscape there. Garden of the Gods is a small area of Shawnee National Forest. It has alot of rock formations. They range from humongous cliffs, to cave's, to a serious of small boulders (similiar to what stephane was on in USF3). It is highly wooded, and during most of the year there is not very many people there. This means it would be very private and intresting.
Now for the campsite. Last time i was there we found a PERFECT camp site. It's backwoods which means it's free, and shawnee dosn't require you to have a backwoods liscense. The place i'm thinking of is a clearing with about a 40 foot diameter. There's a cliff right by it that overlooks a lot of backwoods forest. But all around the lower part of the cliff is large boulders, small boulders, large rocks (boulders and rocks range from 3 feet around, to about 10 feet around), and caves. So we could easily camp out there, climb down, and do some parkour.
Anyways I was thinking about doing it sometime during spring break, but everyone's spring break is different. So if anyone can come up with a convient time to have it (after christmas probally), i'd love to hear it. I'm really commited to doing this jam regardless of how many people show. It's in southern Illinois. Google Shawnee national forest, or Garden of the Gods illinois. If you want more info on the place. (Aero crew it'd be awesome if you came down. Indiana guys you should totally do it.)
We'll just have to be careful not to step on gods flowers.
For some pictures, of one small spot, go here
http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php/topic,2109.0.html Those pictures were not taken for the purposes of showing what parkour could be done there. They were just for fun. But it does highlight a little bit of what it's like there.
If you want to skip the confusion of reading thru the entire thread, feel free to just PM me with questions.
Update Info
Ok. People time is coming NEAR. 270- 836- 0646 . That will be my cell phone. You can call me any time on the way. I'll help you get there. If you want to come to my house call me (Home 270- 821-9448) and i'll hook you up with the address and everything. As for what we are going to do. No serious plans. I figure we will just go with it. BRING A TENT, BRING FOOD TO COOK, BRING MONEY, BRING LIQUIDS. When camping all this stuff is important. It should not be raining, or to cold that weekend. So i wouldn't worry about super heavy duty sleeping bags. Ok so for the scheldule
Friday Night- Anyone who wants can come to my house. I live an hour away from the actual GotG sight. The people at my house will head to GotG that evening and get set up. So if you want to meet us at GotG friday night just give me a call. We'll also sleep out there and maybe get a little jammage in.
Saturday Morning- The ones of us there will get up and get a little parkour done. Then we will head to the actual Garden of the Gods rock structure's parking lot. We can meet everyone else there. It should be easy to find. Once again CELL PHONE. Call me if you possibly can. If i don't have signal call Freestyle Fox.(Post your number up Dale >.<) That way we make sure you find us. We should be done with this around 1-3
Saturday afternoon- WE JAM. We hit up my favorite space, but try to stay off the actual rock face of GotG, because on the rockface we'd be likely to get kicked off. So we will hit that up sunday. Instead i know ALOT of great backwoods area, that is just buetiful for parkour. This is the main training ground, we'll eat our lunches out there. And jam out there. That's another thing BRING SANDWICH MAKINGs, AND CHIPS. They will come in handy for food on the go.
Saturday Night- We head back to the campground from a long night of training, and party our selves to sleep. I would say do try to keep alchohol to a minumum. Just because it is a jam, and we will be doing more stuff in the morning. Also don't stay up to late. We'll def get a fire going and cook our dinners though. Fun fun, fire.
Sunday Morning- We'll hit up the actual GotG rockface. Not much to do there but a little fun, and jam around any other area's we find. We will continue to do this all day, until we decide to go home. Anyone who wants to head to my house with me sunday, feel free. I have the entire next week off. So i can probally have some people over, and we can jam around the tiny little town i live in. Not much to do. And i don't expect to many people to be there.
Note- I may also have a guy recording us, just a freind of mine
Note 2- BE PREPARED, even over prepared. The camping will be rustic, so you will have to walk to get to the campgrounds. There probally won't be people around us to often, and you will need supplys
Note 3- Please listen to me, or fox, or my dad. We are hosting it, so we kind of have a plan for what needs to happen.
Note 4- PLEASE COME, and bring as many people as you can. This jam can basically get as big as you can imagine, and it won't bother anything. The nature is a big space.
Note 5- Get my cell phone, and keep in touch with me. If you can make it POST.
This jam is postponed, due to the cold, and lack of interest/people not being able to make it. If you plan on coming anyways, get in touch with me and i can still host it. It's just that noone is talking to me about it so postponed until farthur notice.
