Evergreen Skateparks just finished a new park on the Blackfeet reservation in Browning, Montana. Thunder Park is yet another skatepark funded by Jeff Ament, and it looks like a fun one. Aside from the usual elements we’ve come to expect, there’s a moonscape-like mogul field reminiscent of some parks that were built in the 70’s, but you know, good.

Evergreen Skateparks is working on a park in Browning, Montana on the Blackfeet reservation. The project is being sponsored by Jeff Ament. The park (Big o capsule replica included) is on track to be finished in mid to late October. Meanwhile, Evergreen is breaking ground on a skatespot near the Cully neighborhood in NE Portland on September 15th.

Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament fully funded a small skatepark in his childhood home town of Big Sandy, Montana. His heart’s even bigger than his wallet. 40k is a lot to spend just to have a place to skate when you visit your p’s. Check out the Great Falls Tribune for the details, and then head on over to Earth Patrol Media to check out some photos of Jeff enjoying some Canadian maple mid-air. – Thanks to Ashley Mott for the tip.

Polson, Montana was my last stop on my mini Montana tour. Again, much smaller overall footprint than I thought from seeing previous pictures. I almost forgot to mention in all this, when looking up all these skateparks in Montana, the first link to come up was usually NorthwestSkater.com. Want to see what I mean? Try Googling “Polson Montana Skatepark.” Polson Montana’s skatepark was built by Dreamland, and it’s a fine park. I remember somebody, somewhere bitching about the hood on that cradle, saying it was a waste of money that could have been spent on something else. I’m pretty sure that was in the same conversation that someone was complaining about Whitefish…

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.

Missoula Montana has a 16,000 square foot skatepark completed by Grindline in 2006. I saw video of this either on Fuel TV or Tony Hawk’s Skatepark Tour. I thought it was going to be huge. It’s pretty good sized, but not nearly as mammoth as it looked on TV. I think it’s pretty safe to say that any skatepark is going to appear smaller in real life, but I haven’t been to Lake Cunningham yet.)

I’ve been staying at a ranch out in the middle of nowhere, Montana. One of the staff heard me mention wanting to travel into Missoula to check out the skatepark. Turns out I could cut my drive time down from one hour to 15 minutes. The little town of St Ignatius, population 811, has a skatepark. St Ignatius is near the Flathead Indian Reservation, and in fact Native Americans made up approximately 40% of the population in the last census. St Ignatius received a Tony Hawk Foundation grant in 2006. That grant helped fund phase 1 of the park. Phase 2 of the park was completed by Dreamland on July 8th.

Ray Stevens II of The Faction, Los Olvidados, Drunk Injuns, Odd Man Out, and Clay Wheels fame has a new band called RS2 SOLID SOUND. They have recently completed the soundtrack to the movie SUPERCHARGED: The life and times of Tim Brauch. One of the stops on their Northwest tour is the movie premiere in Missoula, Montana on the 30th of July. Coincidence would have it that I’m sitting in the Montana night air (sweating)as I’m typing this. I’ve been staying an hour north of Missoula for the past week, and will be leaving two days before then. I will be back in time for the Portland show (with Stinkbug) at PLAN B in Portland on Thursday the 29th. That’s just rock and roll in Portland, there will be no showing of Supercharged at that time. I’m not sure if Supercharged is the project formerly known as Beans or not. Portland flyer after the jump.

I was excited to get an invitation to join Wally Inouye, Chris Strople, and Bryce Kanights on a four day trip to the Treasure State. Wally and Strople were childhood heroes of mine and I have been meaning to get up to check out the Montana skateparks for the last several years. Read the story at Antigravity Press

Oops! St. Helena California Helena Police log reports increasing attendance at Grindline’s new St. Helena, California Skatepark. Wednesday, Aug. 12 1618 — Report of approximately nine kids skating without helmets at the unfinished Crane Park skatepark. Police responded and told the kids not to come back until the park opens. Friday, Aug. 14 2042 — A man on Main Street complained of a stomach ache. He said he’d been drinking all day and hadn’t had anything to eat since the morning. He was taken to St. Helena Hospital for evaluation.