Big Bear Valley, CA — The Big Bear Valley is home to a number of young superstars. While 13-year-old Jordan Romero was making his way to the peak of Mt. Everest, 10-year-old Drayden Gardner and seven-year-old Dustin Henricksen segued from snowboarding competitions to making their mark on the skateboarding circuit, competing in California Amateur Skateboard League events. Earlier this month, Gardner received a trophy for his fourth place finish in the Vans Skate Park CASL Street Competition, earning him a place in July’s California State Games, a statewide sports festival that is a grass roots program of the United States Olympic Committee, per his mom Holly (McDonald) Gardner, who notes that Drayden will compete in streetstyle, mini-ramp and pool riding disciplines. Henricksen, a first grader at Baldwin Lane, also earned a fourth place ranking in the Vans Skate Park Bowl Competition and will join Gardner at the next CASL competition on June 19 at the Fontana Skate Park prior to the State Games festival in July. The two had competed in the USASA Nationals at Copper Mountain, Colorado in April, where 10-year-old Toby Miller, a fourth-generation Big Bear local, won a national snowboarding title for his age group. Given this impressive finish, Miller, who has recently been training in Tahoe, has been invited to train with the U.S. snowboarding coaches (including Olympian Shaun White’s coach) on Mammoth Mountain this week in the exclusive Project Gold program; this invitational opportunity trains the country’s top juniors in preparation for snowboarding competition in the Olympics.
