Mount Tabor in Portland Oregon is a popular spot for casual downhill and the occasional slalom race. It’s paved asphalt road is smooth and closed to automobile traffic. The incline and turns never get too hairy, but you can still get going at a decent clip. Mt. Tabor also has an open (drinking) water reservoir with visible banked walls. If you’ve ever wondered if that spot was skateable underneath, wonder no more. [Photo: Ross William Hamilton/The Oregonian]
Mt Tabor Reservoir drained
Today’s (4-10-07) Oregonian newspaper has a picture of the drained reservoir in the Metro section (page B3), as well as online at Oregon Live. The Oregonian’s web site has the picture stashed in a popup gallery viewer, and there’s no discernable way to look at past galleries, so this thing will likely disappear in a week’s time. Hard drive space must be more expensive for them, or maybe they fear the past. Here’s what they have to say about the shot.
Mark Edwards of the Portland Water Bureau works on Reservoir No. 1 at Mount Tabor Park on Monday as the Water Bureau begins its twice-yearly cleaning. The city has five open reservoirs for drinking water: three at Mount Tabor and two at Washington Park. In April and May, they are partially drained and pressure washed. “This routine spring cleaning ensures clean, cold water from forest to faucet,” Administrator David Shaff said.
Has this ever been skated? Not recently, is my guess. Post 9-11, people have been freaking out about the reservoir being open. There has been talk of covering the reservoir, even though most residents want it left alone. There are security cameras around the perimeter. I’m guessing that skateboarding in it would be severely frowned upon, to say the least. However, if you do happen to skate it or have done so in the past, let us know. Have a picture? Send it!
9 comments
Casey M.
Me and a few of the guys skated one of the ones near the Zoo and Washington Park a year or two ago, after a few Zoobomb runs.
The pockets are pretty fun, but everything is layered with a thin layer of slippery micro-pebbles so it’s hard to get up on the walls on foot, and the transitions are so far apart that there’s no good way to go about pumping your speed up. You basically have to drop in from the top, holding onto the fence to keep from slipping, which gives you some good speed, but you’ve got to figure out how to keep to the pockets or else you’ll lose all your momentum before getting anywhere else.
There was also a camera at the entrance of the one we went to and you had to hop a fence, so don’t break anything or someone might go over the tape to see whodunnit.
Overall, pretty fun, wouldn’t take the risk again, good story though.
Kilwag (k.ed)
Yes, good story. Much better with pictures. Pictures?
paige
My dad had a job for the City of Portland with Parks and Recreation. He paved a lot of things there. I wonder if he did that.
Casey M.
We didn’t take any pictures. D:
It was one of those GO GO GO, SKATE AS FAST AS YOU CAN EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF type things. We weren’t looking forward to see how homeland security would deal with skating in the city’s drinking cups. We didn’t do anything picture-worthy anyway.
dick
Get your longboard out and come out on Wednesday’s…ONLY on that day is there no traffic in the park…Remember that ONLY on WEDNESDAY’S is the park closed to traffic. I guess if you want to argue you can say run ONE is free from traffic but that’s the kidddy run. Run Two has the turns, speed bump hard left and end up with a hairpin right. I GPSed myself and hit 27mph up there. Some claim run ONE they can hit 30,35mph. The world record downhill speed is 63mph. I plan on hitting 65mph out in Gaston down this hill that is 2.4 miles downhill. I hit 37 mph on the ole gps only a quarter mile up…I have quite a ways to go. But for me it’s all about speed. The need for speed.
speed is good. meth, crank, gack,tweek, is BAd. Muy Malo. Just say no to white dope. China white is bad too. Stay green………..the Dick
indiana jeff
i saw the same pic in the newspaper and thought that shit is totally skateable . i guess even though you get too old to really street skate you never quit looking.
Danimal
i saw a story on the news about tabor last week, the bikes are taking over!
KGW.com link
at least theyre not blaming us.
Danimal
ok that link didnt work, you can find it if you search mt tabor on the kgw.com site, from april 5
Kilwag (k.ed)
I fixed the link.