I spent the day at Glacier National Park with the family and made a detour on the way home to stop at Whitefish. I remembered seeing pictures of the park, and it looked kind of desolate. The main thing I recalled was some grousing about the area that has coping below another transition and some steps. It was a controversial decision, but I’ve seen it work before in Tigard. It was getting dark, and I had to choose between Kalispell and Whitefish. Not remembering a damn thing about Kalispell, I chose to check out Whitefish, and to my surprise, it might be my favorite of all the Montana skateparks I visited.
Like I said, The sun was going down and I was running out of time, trying to get some runs in and get photos. The gods of photography are not smiling on me. I just had to replace a camera body that crapped out. While packing for this trip I discovered the month old batteries inside corroded all over the inside. It still flashes, but I have no control over the settings and the display is unintelligible. I tried it for a while with mixed results. In the end I had to switch to the onboard flash, which sucks with a wide angle lens. So here’s what you get, a bunch of haphazard shots taken by a guy who wasn’t concentrating and had a broken flash.
I met some friendly locals by the name of Willie, Parker and Troy. Here’s some shots of them.
Parker.
Willie
Troy
The street trough has some interesting things on the side.
Here’s two different views of the deepest bowl. Pools coping. Nice.
Here’s the much maligned coping arrangement. In person, I hardly paid any attention to it. It’s perfectly usable or ignorable.
Here’s a close up of the natural rock embedded in the corner.
More shots of the locals.
Parker volunteered to throw himself down these seven stairs a few times and I couldn’t get an angle I liked, so I owe it to him to post an extra.
Hey, how did this handsome and stylish young man get in here? He looks like he comes from good stock.
12 comments
Parker
so cool to see me up there, cant wait to go back. thanks for the pics. hit me up when your back in town. Maybe i’ll do the $100 gap for ya 😉
egbert
I thought that first pick of Willie was Grover.
troy meske
dude this is so cool thanks for puting it up.
Tom Miller
Whitefish is epic, in my opinion. Unique lines to draw for years. To me it represents the very best of Dreamland. Very much in the vein of Burnside and Tigard. The more you skate it the more those unique lines start to materialize. Endless layers of opportunity.
Poulson is amazing, and St. Ignatius, for its size, is super fun. Kalispell is fun to ping pong around all those round hips. Missoula is a great park. I can’t speak to the others (e.g. Butte, Dillon, Anaconda, etc.). But for me, Whitefish tops the list.
Prickly Pete
Last time I drove between Kalispell and Whitefish I counted 14 Ten Commandment installations. I just checked the mileage between the two towns: 14.5 miles.
Whitefish is the better of the two and that scary ass bowl in W-fish grows on a guy. Still, if I had to live in Kalispell I wouldn’t be disappointed by the terrain.
Come back soon, Kilwag. You only saw the tip of the iceberg.
kilwag
I think they replaced the commandment installations with anti-meth signs.
Actually, Seeing all those signs made me start to wonder what I was missing.
kilwag
I’d love to, actually. I also hit Polson. It was a family vacation though, hard to get amped by yourself. I need to go back with some of the crew.
conahan
There’s a lot of good stuff up there. Can’t wait to get back myself.
hurton
are the cops still on the hourly helmet law enforcement drive by there?
kilwag
Didn’t appear to be. I wasn’t there that long, but those other kids had been there for a while, no helmets in sight.
hurton
yea Kalispell isn’t much when compared to whitefish. the scenery that you are surrounded with and the locals are always really cool. we usually just sleep in the van in the parking lot next to the park. hit up second street pizza for an easy place to eat.
ticorico
You made the right call hitting Whitefish instead of Kalispell. Glad to hear you hit Glacier, I’ll tell anyone that is planning a skate trip to MT to spend at least a couple days at Glacier.