With all the recent skatepark construction in the greater Portland area and beyond, it’s hard to believe PIer Park is only a year old. It seems like an institution already. This past weekend saw some great Indian Summer weather in Portland, and although the pictures might not show it, there was a healthy, festive crowd at Pier Park on both days. More pics after the jump.

It was raining but we rode the park anyway, sort of.

Windell’s Snowboard Camp has evolved over the years. They had a bunch of outdoor ramps including a crazy spine bowl and various street and mini combinations, then they built a crazy indoor bowl setup and then later the indoor Bobcomplex with a 75 foot miniramp. The latest and greatest seems to be concrete. Old School Skateboarding had a party there last Sunday.

Steve Gump has posted new photos of the Tigard park. The Tigard website still shows the park opening Tuesday. The forecast is for an 80% chance of rain.

And I thought Seattle was the only city that liked to tear down perfectly good skateparks without making er, concrete plans to replace them. You can add Huntington Beach California to that short list of cities. The OC Register reports that the plans for a new stadium will definitely eliminate the existing park without including a replacement. Ironically, California has just started running a second tourism commercial that features skateboarding as a draw. What are you going to do about that Governor Schwarzenegger? Your state’s skateparks are being terminated! [Photo Right: Mark Martinez, The Register]

Weather looks good for Saturday. Nothing official, although we have a couple of decks and some t-shirts we might be persuaded to part with. I’ll head over sometime around lunchtime.

Google maps has a new feature called Streetview. Dave Tobin tipped me that it was live today. Coverage is pretty good in Portland. Go to google maps, pick streetview and drag the little man to the spot you want to look at. Holly Farm is right by the road so you can see a couple of folks hanging out and one guy skating. I can’t wait for Google flyover.

So Seven Days from today right?

Yeah, this is old, but still good. I can’t believe this went down at D.O.S. and we didn’t know about it. Well actually, I can. From the D.O.S. website: This went down a long time ago, but who knows how many people actually saw it. Dave England and some buddies made this for a website and it got passed around the interweb for a minute. Beach was the perfect dude to try and ride something like this. The first time they did it, they blew all the balloons up with their mouths. 10 hours and they ended up with a quarter of the balloons shown. Round 2 they got an air compressor. The best thing (aside from a bowl full of balloons) is all the popping noises. I imagine the longer they rode the sketchier it got. Truly unique and fun stuff. Check out the vid after the jump.

This guy didn’t make the cut. He was lying around the site for a while but they didn’t en up using him. I think he was originally going to be flipping off the T.Rex. Looks like he’d fit right in with our crew.