Sure, we have some of the most famous parks in the world, but we also have our share of clunkers. During one of my many customary visits to SkateOregon, I decided to investigate the page dedicated to the “Skate Trac” in Prineville Oregon. What a gem! Oh save me, Tony Hawk Foundation. I still say this is better than phase one of Salem.
32 comments
jf
OMG..this is one of the worst park I’ve ever seen. What’s up with the crazy steep vert transitions? and the rail right next to the dirt?
wow…..
sleezyskates
i’d skate it
bobcat
still better than nothing, guys.
I bet in 1997 when it was built, it was top of the line.
go do a shitty skatepark tour and reacquaint yourselves with the past. You’ll learn to appreciate shit more.
marek
guys, this would be close to the top of the line in czech republic. but hey, i live in portland. i dont care anymore…
Gabetheripper
no way man salem park fucking rips i skate it everyday sure theres no copeing and a million bikes but hey roots is roots you gotta learn somewhere…andrecht plants in the square for life!!!
nweyesk8
thats a burly ‘roll-in’ lip
Greg N
Id Skate it before Id skate the Salem park for sure. “sure theres no coping and a million bikes” … that could be a pile of dirt.
duders
looks pretty gnarly at least
Kilwag
I think Gabe is talking about Salem phase two with the pyramid and not the old snake bowl… Or I could be wrong.
Gabetheripper
no way man the bowl is where its at i’ll always be talkin bout that scene…the best phase 1, you just can never stop pumping theres no easy way of skating that, its like hitting one of those shitty banks or ditches you all know we love
Kilwag
Oh man. My hats off. We hit phase one, trying to ride it was like running on a stairmaster or one of those stationary joggers, it was a constant struggle to get anywhere, granted, it was park 15 of the 16 we hit that day, and we were a little spent, but man. I can appreciate a crappy spot for sure. The old Pier Park in pDX sucked eggs but was still a lot of fun when approached with the right mind frame…. Salem phase one though… that spot is rough.
Gabetheripper
yeah i always love it rough as you saw at aumsville “i like to skateboard”
damienhialation
The shitty parks are usually my favorites. I’ve had more fun at the Little West Linn park than most of the other parks in Portland, anti-graffiti slip-n-slide paint and all. The challenge of shittiness is half the fun!
damienhialation
“go do a shitty skatepark tour and reacquaint yourselves with the past. You’ll learn to appreciate shit more.”
well said Bobcat!
tomato-san jo biatch
It doesn’t look too bad to anybody that skated in the early 90’s. Back in the day this would be a nice skatespot. I don’t want to bash people who weren’t around then but I just don’t feel theres enough appreciation for how good it is these days.
colin walsh rules
tomato is right… have u skated the new park in san jo? im from sc and their new park is pretty sweet… fun but the sun gets in yur eye in the shallow end @ about 4-7 pm well… hopefully you shred the new sj park.. looks HUGE
rocco
those tight trannys are the best
Kilwag
Yeah right, I can appreciate a crappy skatepark for sure, being old enough to remember when the skateparks were… NONEXISTENT in the midwest, with the exception of the Turf in Milwaukee. If we wanted transition we had to build it ourselves out of wood. Never occurred to us to use cement. The concrete trail had not been blazed…
We are spoiled for sure. Screw the good old days, these ARE the good old days.
Like I said, had some good times at the old Pier Park. I like the old Swift park in Vancouver too.
damienhialation
In Albany, we had curbs. Latter in high-school we’d congregate all of out ramps, rails, and extra wood to build new ramps at “the clearing” with the bikers so we had something to skate (or ride in the bikers case). That is, until the Albany hick-folk would run over them with their trucks at night and drive by calling us “skater-fags”, so we’d re-build and start again… the good ol’ days.
Tom Miller
Prineville, Pier 1, Scappoose, Des Moines, etc. are the Commodore 64s of skateparks.
Lmobb
yeah kilwag.. nicely put..that last era..ain’t no back-talkie from milwaukie… that trail had yet not been blazed.. serious understatement.. still trying to stoke the blaze in these parts you luckyneks..
Kilwag
Commodore 64s? I say, more like the TRS-80’s
bobcat
TRS-80s sucked though. Did you ever know anyone that had one? I mean, countless were the times going into Radio Shack and playing the games but i never knew anyone who actually owned one. That is from someone who went Atari 800 / TI-99 4a / Commodore 128 / Apple 3
poke 1011,1
peek 214,218
Kilwag
Yeah, my friend had one actually. I can remember the long downtime waiting for the cassette player “hard drive” to load up a game.
Apple III? I missed that one. I started with an Apple IIe
bobcat
Hunt the Wumpus and Parsec on TI99 FTW!
yeah those tapes sucked. I remembered typing in 10 pages of code from PC mag to make some cheezeball card game then had no way to save it.
Apple 3 was just a failed attempt at making Apple ][ and ][+ cheaper to the masses. That shit ran like 2500 bucks back then – no amount of paperroute money could generate that much.
chompy
compute and annoy
spk
my father had a apple 2+ plus low density floppy disc 5 1/4 @ that time that was BIG stuff . television monitor. no hard drive.
syntax error ###
spk
im gonna teke pics from the skate parks that were built back in the seventies here…they still exists and as all i can say their are the bes one to skate cause here we just have thousands of plazas…and i skate almos everyday at a skate plaza and wood mini ramps cause the dream here is not happening, we are still in the 90’s 45 ramps and boxes 🙁
so the old “things” are the coolest ones. we are building a new skull bowl but its not ready yet.
http://www.swellskate.com.br – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSVVldVOG1g
the bowl is GNNAAAAAARLY. imperfection is the word .
spk
better pics http://www.swellskate.com.br/historia.php
spk
the new baby http://www.swellskate.com.br/noticia.php?id=87
yomama
ooohhh. i love shitty metal skateparks. something about the clang, clang sound i think. some of them are so bad it’s like they were not even made to sk8 on hence making them fun as shit. i got one in my hometown. thank god it is not a butter smoothe park.
yomama
when i lived up in oregoone , we used to go make a point to go hit all the shitty parks too. always kill, cuz no one was ever there except the local snot noses. when we first moved up there(portland) most folks wuz like “oh don’t go here or don’t go there.”
you can’t ever trust most locals cuz they usually have gotten lazy and forgotten about fun. one time we went to donald and then i made everyone go to canby and mollala. we ended up on a tiny ferry across a river to go to canby somehow. they were bummed until i showed them the sick berkely bank type tranny at canby. blah, blah, blah..