Footnote | The Legend of BOOBY TRAP

Footnote | The Legend of BOOBY TRAP [00:00:00] JESSE DEVOST: Boogaloo North spit you out at Booby Trap, which is where Rob just about impaled himself to death. [00:00:18] MARK KOEPKE: In the interest of time and perhaps a latent sense of decency, I let that intriguing statement from builder Jesse Devost go unexplained in the Boogaloo story. Well, I guess it was mostly a time issue... because I'm now dusting it off in a short footnote. I'm assuming that many listeners will have at least some vague idea of what Booby Trap is and how it got its name, but I'm pretty sure you'll want to hear this anyway... as long as you're not ridiculously squeamish like me. When I was editing this piece, there were moments when I wasn't sure if I would laugh or barf. For those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about, let me set the story up. Around the time we were building Boogaloo Heights, some of us discovered that it was really fun to ride an old, unnamed trail that now divides Boogaloo North from Boogaloo Lakes. That trail had a very bumpy but exciting downhill that was followed by a short climb to connect with Broken Truck. [00:01:15] THANE PHILLIPS: Yeah, it took you to Broken Truck... [00:01:17] MARK: That's Thane Phillips, and the reason he's laughing is because he knows that I made a sign that incorrectly identified the trail as Broken Truck, not Burnt Truck, an error that inevitably found its way onto multiple maps. [00:01:30] THANE: But once a name's on a map, that's it. [00:01:33] MARK: So a bunch of us really got into riding this unnamed trail over to, ahem, Broken Truck, where Thane and I eventually went to great effort to pack in and install a prefabricated jump. [00:01:44] THANE: It is exceptional to find a jump that Mark Koepke will do. [00:01:47] MARK: I can personally attest that this jump was a lot of low risk fun. From what I can remember, we built Boogaloo North specifically to connect with Booby Trap. And before we built Boogaloo Lakes, the Booby Trap-Broken Truck route was generally the way you'd get back to Riverdale after riding Boogaloo North. So now that you have this little bit of history, you're ready to hear how one man's near fatal impaling inspired a trail name. [00:02:16] THANE: Booby Trap... How did Booby Trap get named? I was living downtown and had a roommate who wore glasses but didn't see very well. His name was Rob and he was trying to get to Booby Trap before Boogaloo North had been made, and so he was going from Lower Boogaloo, taking some double track over to Booby Trap, and there was a spruce tree that had fallen down and was pointing straight up the trail like a joust, like a javelin. And because he doesn't see very well, he biked himself right into the end of it, right into his left boob. He tore his nipple, 90% off. His nipple was 90% torn off. And Rob didn't even get knocked off the bike. He came to a stop, but he had snapped off the end of the spruce tree, and there was about six inches of it sticking out of his chest. And I remember he told me he looked down, sees this six inches of this spruce tree sticking out of his chest. The first thing he did was pull it out. And then as soon as he did that, he's like, "Oh, my God, that was a terrible idea. I'm gonna die." And then he plugged the hole with his other hand, expecting to bleed out, all alone on this double track, you know, this trail on Grey Mountain. And then he's standing there over his bike, and he realizes he's not bleeding out. So what is he supposed to do? He's relatively close to the hospital, so he ditches the bike and walks to the hospital and goes to emerg. And I had just finished a mountain bike in Hillcrest, and I got this phone call from him saying, "Hey, I'm in emerg. My bike is near Lower Boogaloo, at this point.... Can you go get it?" And I was like, okay. His bike was gone. And we, like, found this six inch or eight inch stick that was bloody for two inches on one end, grabbed that. We could trace all his movements, found the joust or the javelin sticking up, pushed it out of the way. Then we found marks of this person walking two mountain bikes out of the bush. And knowing the bike community at that point in Whitehorse, knowing it was just someone who saw this bike was abandoned, they're gonna take it. And I think it was Chris McNeil. So then I went to emerg. Rob was in emerg. He's gonna be fine. They had to suture his nipple back on. And the best part is, it was Doctor Quong, Ken Quong. And he's like, "If there isn't enough blood flow to the nipple, it's going to dry up, die, and fall off." And then he goes, "But you know what part of the body they use to reconstruct the nipple?" I was fascinated. I was like, "No, no, what do you use?" And he's like, "Well, we take part of the scrotum and rebuild the nipple." And Rob is like, "Please don't make me laugh," because his ribs have been just ripped and I was just peeing my pants. I was laughing so hard. As it turns out, his nipple remained intact. There was enough blood flow so they didn't have to take parts of his scrotum to rebuild his left nipple. Booby Trap. Yeah, I like that name of that trail. [00:06:05] MARK: It doesn't surprise me that Thane likes the name. After all, he's the one who coined it. But sadly, I suspect the name, like the legend, has kind of faded in the collective consciousness of local riders. [00:06:16] THANE: I don't think many people use the term Booby Trap anymore. [00:06:19] MARK: I'm not sure how much Booby Trap even gets ridden now that Boogaloo Lakes is there. At one point, I did make a sign for Booby Trap with blood-red lettering, if I recall correctly. [00:06:33] THANE: But I don't know if the sign's still there. Cause somebody stole it. [00:06:37] MARK: Rob, if you're listening, we forgive you. You earned that sign, buddy. [00:06:41] THANE: I've seen Rob recently, but I haven't asked him how his nipple is. I probably should. [00:06:46] MARK: And Rob, if you're inclined to offer a status update on one or more of your nipples... I left my number on your voicemail. Every Trail Tells a Story will soon return to its irregularly scheduled programming. Thanks for listening.