Western Washington Road Trip - Posted 7-13-07
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DAY THREE

Conahan: If you are groggy and hung-over it can be hard to contemplate a skatepark triple feature and as we hit the road north, The group was ready to forego Carnation but since we were going right through it we stopped. We missed our turnoff and had to backtrack through North Bend and Snoqualamie.

Kilwag: Yes, home of the "Twin Peaks" pie. That's good coffee, agent Conahan.

Conahan: Sometimes my arms bend back. Tony had been there for hours by the time Hughes met us there. We had been skating for an hour before Shawn realized we weren't at Duvall. Carnation skatepark is an older Grindline creation. Both Kilwag and MC had been there before. Which is why we originally agreed to skip it. It's a one-bowl style park like Crossroads ‹ a little rougher around the edges. We had the place to ourselves again. Team Math had an errand in Seattle and stopped by the Marginal Way DIY so there were just 8 of us this time. Carnation has a combination of formed and steel coping, an oververt pocket and a banked wall section. The top end is shallower than Crossroads but the deep might be about the same, no waterfall though, the park slopes from one end to the other. I like Carnation but these days there are better parks to skate. Skate it if you're there but don't bother to make the long drive out of Seattle just for this. Thumbs up, but not way up.

Kilwag: What is the deal with all these deserted skateparks? Carnation was mostly devoid of locals the last time I was there too. I had a lot better session this time than the last time I was there. Those of you who were there this time, please hold your comments about how lame my first session must have been. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't make a day of it. I can't get a good line into that cradle, but some people obviously can (Link to shot of jesse and blader hater from previous visit). The shallow, which seemed unmanagable the last itme I was there, didn't seem nearly as bad as I remebered. I'm not sure about the surface of this park. It was kind of rough. Some of that might be random dirt that has caked on and baked on by the sun, nothing a good pressure wash wouldn't solve. I remember the old Pier Park used to suffer from that. I give this a mild thumbs up.

Conahan: Now Duvall was more like it. This new Grindline skatepark features some innovative features in the street section including skateable boulders worked into the contours of the park. But the real attraction is the spacious 4 foot to 9 foot left-kidney with pebbled coping and three-steps to go over in the shallow. This bowl is a great shape. I wish the steps had a little tranny at the bottom as a safety feature. If you get too close to the straight-sided bottom step, pow! The coping is gnarly loud but pebbles don't come loose and fall into the bowl as in true exposed aggregate coping. They clear-coated the hell out of it so it has a shiny wet-look to it, and did I mention? It grinds loud. Steve Betten makes some noise in there. I'll be back to this park. Speaking of making noise, Kyle was shaking the place slamming to the ground on repeated attempts to get over the steps frontside. The trip was starting to take it's toll as Shawn's neck muscles seized up. But that Duvall bowl was my favorite session of the trip. Thumbs up! So far up I have to open my mouth to hitchhike!

Kilwag: What is it the kids say? This park was hella good. Granted, we mostly hung out in the bowl and the overall square footage is not very large, but that bowl is really, really nice. The street section looked to be fun if you knew what you were doing in that respect. I give this park a hearty thumbs up if only for the bowl.

Conahan: We hated to leave but planned to camp in Arlington and Grindline's Arlington Skatepark was supposed to be our DAY TWO highlight. Arlington has a eighteen-foot diameter capsule-ended pipe and vert bowls on either side with a big coping-topped banked wall in one and a long tapered loveseat in the other. There are some good air lines at Arlington. A street area full of big ledges and rails was also seeing some use. I'm sure the crew that was skating when we arrived was bummed to see our ten-skater group show up.

Kilwag: You bet Mark. Nothing like having an intimate session barged by 10 dudes from out of town, mostly wearing pads. I detected a bit of a buzz kill in the air when we arrived.

Conahan: Fortunately for the locals, a couple of our guys were still feeling the previous evening's excesses. Not everyone skated at once. We were all a little burnt by that point. Arlington is a gnarly park, smooth and fast. We skated Õtil dark. Definitely worth the trip. Thumbs up!

Kilwag: I'll have to give a thumbs up to Gnarlington as well. For vert skaters, the left half of the big bowl is essentially a concrete halfpipe. It's funny, that park looks larger in pictures than it does when you are driving up to it. When you get in it you realise how large it is. Steve Betten was getting some insane over vert action in that capsule. I swear I saw him half-fall from near 11:00, extending his legs until his board caught up with the transition on the way down again. And Hughes was launching some lofty frontsides as usual. I was pretty burned out by the time I got there and had a hard time getting stoked. The park was fun but it seemed to be a little too wide open for me. It seems like you might get bored after a few months of this being your home town park. Still, I give it a thumbs up.

Conahan: Okay, we agree on the rating but how can you imagine getting bored there? Imagine how your skating would improve with a park like that in your town?

Kilwag: I'm trying to imagine my skating improving. Trying harder... Nope, I've mastered everything I need to know about skating. Speaking of visitors, the crew that was there when we arrived was a hoot and a holler. It was like we were crashing someone's acid trip. They were all on a different wavelength when we arrived. By the time we left, everyone seemed like longtime session firends. Maybe it was Shawn shotgunning beer in the parking lot with them and listening to the sad tale of the demise of a Chihuahua in a tragic snowboarding accident.

Conahan: Shawn took his stiff neck and Tim to look into the camping situation. The state park turned out to be booked up but they found a really nice campground further down the road, and they got to see a guy jump his garage on a motorcycle on their way back to the park. The campsite was lovely and spacious, in the trees by a lake, came with firewood and was full of late-night partiers so noise wasn't an issue, Tim and Kyle even made some new friends. Thumbs up for the DAY THREE campsite. After this commercial break, we'll return with day four.

 

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Western Washington Road Trip - Posted 7-13-07
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photos © kilwag