Boarding School

Somewhere east of Temecula, at a remote desert outpost known only as Point X, Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins is perched high atop a wooden platform, fending off butterflies.

"I don't know why I'm so scared!" she yells down to her friends.

She has returned to the extreme sports camp where she made history last winter by becoming the first female skateboarder to negotiate a successful landing -- after a jump across a 50-foot gap -- on the harrowing Mega Ramp.

In a sport where accolades are earned through feats of courage as well as creativity and skill, the 15-year-old from Encinitas reached deep within for five hours before taking the 48-foot plunge down the takeoff ramp.

The distance she had to cover -- the equivalent of about 12 cars side by side -- was only one concern. While in the air, nearly 30 feet high and traveling at 35 mph, she had to clutch the skateboard to her feet, keep it pointed toward the landing ramp and touch down in just the right spot.

A photo sequence of her accomplishment appeared on two pages of Skateboarder magazine, a publication devoted almost entirely to male athletes. She went from being known as one of the world's top female skateboarders to one of its top skateboarders -- period.

"There are probably less than 20 people in the world that have come out here and made that gap, and there have been top professional riders that have come here and not been able to make it, or have been too scared to try," says Tony Magnusson, 41, chairman of Osirus shoes, and an acclaimed skater.

"So for her to make that

Now Adams Hawkins is back for another session, as DC Shoes' lone female team rider, and the view from the top is just as unnerving.

Her friends return shouts of encouragement until she demands silence. She shoves off, plummets rapidly and is soon soaring gracefully, with one hand on the board and an outstretched arm for balance.

The flight ends, however, with the clank of an errant board, ditched before touch-down, and the thud of a skater landing on padded knees. Undeterred, she picks herself up, brushes off, locates her board and climbs up for a second try, then a third and a fourth.

"This style of skating is all about perseverance," says Buster Halterman, 33, who has come to skate the Mega Ramp with Adams Hawkins, Magnusson and Owen Nieder. "You've just got to have a hard head and never-give-up attitude and she's got it."