Oregon Part 1 - South-central/Southeast - Other than Burnside, the granddaddy of the idea of free, public cement skateparks started in Southern Oregon. In the mid to late 90’s they started building, free, cement parks and the world took notice.
Other than Burnside, the granddaddy of the idea of free, public cement skateparks started in Southern Oregon. In the mid to late 90’s they started building, free, cement parks and the world took notice. Now, from San Diego to New England there are cement parks and many of them are “Oregon style” which is to say free, relatively few restrictions and so on.
There are three primary builders in the N.W. and all had hands in building parks in Southern Oregon. Dreamland is the original and stemmed out of Burnside. Dreamland is one of the premier cement park builders to this day, some of their parks are like works of art. Airspeed hails from central Oregon and they do nice work. Grindline is Seattle based and they were a split off from Dreamland and they do equally imaginative work. The parks are mostly transition based, not a street plaza in the southern half of Oregon. The above mentioned companies do make street plazas but not down here, so far.
South-central Oregon kind of combines the best of Oregon and California. It has skateparks, forests, lot’s of rivers, friendly people, like Oregon yet the climate is much drier, like California. It does rain, there are snowboard resorts but nothing like Portland or the coast. The people were super nice everywhere I went. If you like to do things in addition to skating when you travel, Oregon is a great spot, there is a ton of stuff to do.
From the concrete jungle of LA…
…to the forests of Oregon
…started off the bat with what is possibly the best park in Southern Oregon, Klamath Falls. Klamath is just North of the border of California and kinda sits eat of the other towns. The park is a Dreamland Masterpiece. Here is an overview of the park – endless lines. Unlike most parks in Oregon, Klamath is actually staffed and cost money to skate - $1. The primary reason they charge is for the supervision. People were drinking and doing drugs in front of the kids and it was decided that supervision would help eliminate that. The supervisor was a cool kid though he said “it costs $1 and you have to wear a helmet, that’s it” Open like 10-dusk or something like that
Here is the street area which is not quite complete
James Greenleaf showed me around town and stuff and ripped pretty good – bean plant
Skatepark or art? A couple of big air style jumps and a few of the many lines of the big bowl
James does a 360 over the kickers. He says he will learn 720’s, know he just has to 7’s over a 50 foot gap, then a 540 and bam, he wins an X Games medal and can skate for a living
The big 14’ deep bowl, look at all the sick hips and stuff up stream
James in the 14’ deep bowl
The Amoeba, this thing is tough to skate, looks impossible, no flat and deep. You roll in, carve some lines though and things open up to you. Peter Hewitt killed this thing back when it opened
Overt vert truck scratcher
frontside slasher
They called this the gummy bowl – so fun
smith grind in the gummy bowl
little mini bowl
Klamath Board Sports is run by super cool people. The do skate stuff, snow stuff and wakeboard stuff (there are a lot of lakes and rivers nearby) Daewon Song and the Almost team even did a demo here
Klamath is at about 4100’ elevation and therefore cooler than towns like say Ashland. It is pretty sleep town with a few cool bars and restaurants should you decide to stay the night. There are street spots all through ought town
The little town of Talent, Oregon is about 70 miles west of Klamath Falls. It sits in the Rogue River Valley that contains the towns of Ashland, Medford, Grants Pass and more. The towns are pretty big. Talent park is fun but old and with some cracks in spots. There is no supervision there and as a result, there are rocks and stuff in the flat, a broom would help. Open dawn til dusk, helmets required but it did not look like anyone would say anything
More of Talent, the park was built by Airspeed
A weird little bowl at Talent
Here is an example of a park that sees hot temperatures, freezing temps, no maintenance and a lot of years. It is a fun stop though
Down with Indy for life, James got his Dad’s (RIP) name inserted into the Indy logo tattooed onto his arm
