Hood River Oregon’s small and dedicated group of young builders has accomplished allot of work in a short time. The team was headed by Mark Goddard of Benchmark Designs, but he recently departed and left in apparent puff over the design. I applaud the remaining crew for standing up for this communities local scene, hell, they skate it everyday and have serious pride in the outcome of this project. UPDATE: I got a call (!) from Mark who informed me this was never a Benchmark project, he was never the boss, and he was just hired on as an employee. He didn’t leave on bad terms with anyone. It was one of those “agree to disagree” situations. Our apologies to Mark Goddard. – K.ed

Several of our jokes were thwarted at the opening of the Jim Griffith Memorial Skatepark in Tigard yesterday.

Shawn Reinert over the dinosaur before the Tigard grand opening.

Seth Berg sent in this picture of a Ryan Gray air in the square corner at Tigard. It’s not technically masterful, but it has a certain appeal. Enjoy.

Some snaps I took at Tigard last week when there were only four people there.

Rich from EPM notes: Tigard’s grand opening is at 4:30 on Nov. 8th. Well, the sign says the park is open from sunrise to sunset. We go to daylight savings time on Sunday, Nov. 4th making sunset at approx. 4:45 pm on Nov. 8th. That’s Joesf Heffner working on airing over the dinosaur with nightfall riding his ass in the shot above. It’s a bail though, but this was as good excuse as any to post it. You can see the Photoshop-free version after the jump.

Oh man, he’s killing it! Oh wait… Just in case snakeboards aren’t wacky enough for you, you can always add snowboarding bindings. The most interesting thing about this video is the fact that it was shot with an adapter that lets you stick 35mm lenses on a regular old camcorder, for all kinds of artsy-fartsy depth of field effects. Oh yeah, I’ts shot at Australia’s Bondi Beach. Look for the guy on the regular old fashioned skateboard falling down. What a sucker, huh? Thanks to John Aguilar for the tip.

Friends of Pier Park heard from a Parks representative “…this past summer many people using the park have been given 30-day exclusion notices because of breaking leash laws and drinking laws. Specific rules about park use will be posted on the new kiosk. He will also speak with the head of park security, about more enforcement.” A cop also mentioned this to me when he saw all the empties we had collected after the Pier Park Anniversary session. So watch yourselves. It would suck to get banned from the park. I think you can get a picnic permit if you are having a party there. Check with Parks.

Danimal called my attention to an email from Vancouver-Clark Washington Parks & Recreation that I’d been meaning to follow up on. They added a couple of new skate spots in addition to the “Extreme Sports Park” at Pacific Community Park. I meant to go check them out, but Sam over at SkateOregon already has. He’s got site photos, map links, and links to the appropriate Parks & Rec pages with history, construction photos, and other details. No need to repost that stuff here, so head on over to SkateOregon. Vancouver Washington has three “skate spots” now. The one at the top is at Tenny Creek, and looks the most promising. It’s simple but has a lot to offer. I think we may be approaching the day where these things get built out of habit instead of as an exception. Screw the good old days – these are the good old days!

Yes, we’ve mentioned Google Maps Street View before, but it’s still good to make a note when various skate spots come online. Here’s a peek at perhaps the world’s most famous skatepark. Burnside never looked so clean. Thanks to Grumpy Joe for the tip.