Sparkle F.
Yelp
Built by Grindline, one of the premiere skatepark builders in the world, this park rocks!
I hail from Portland, Oregon-home of the greatest DIY skatepark in the world--Burnside. Additionally, Portland and Oregon itself has many many skateparks built by Grindline and Dreamland (the builders of Burnside)
So how does this park rank?
Let's break it down.
Street section is large and wide open in all four direction. Street section has a ton of transition, some stairs, and plenty of benches and rails to boot. Best of all street section is seamless with rest of park. It flows nicely into a bad ass snake run with hips and pockets that ends in a cradle!
The entire park can be circumnavigated on your board and you won't get bored. there are transitions everywhere!
Ok, let's take a look at the pools. There are two extremely large pools to skate. First I'll talk about the kidney bowl. It's huge, for better or for worse, you decide. The transition is steep in the shallow but not deadly steep so dropping in is doable for even a beginner. There is a set of stairs you can carve over if you got the speed and the know how. In my opinion it possibly has to much flat in the pool could be slightly tighter for more speed. Plus there was a funky little part to the concrete that didn't get as smooth as should be, but its in the flat section so can be avoided easily. The coping is quit strange also- its made of pebbled concret? you might or might not like it
Now for the grand-daddy of all pools- I dont even know how to describe it- it has every feature iv'e ever ridden except for a complete full pipe (Pier Park in POrtland has a beautiful one if your ever up there)--dropping is easy almost anywhere because there is so much withour vert. There is a huge huge wall maybe ten foot with no vert--its kinda the center of the whole bowl. It links the other sections together. There is a super nice square bowl- about 12 foot or so all the way around super fun and fast. You can pump over some huge as hell hips and skate into a bowl that will whip you into another bowl with a split level transition. Come out of that and hit the huge ass wall, bust a trick if you can and gather speed as you come into a huge ass half-pipe with little to no flat that leads you into the biggest craddle( yes another one!) i've ever seen--and I've seen a big one --go to BattleGround in Washington state if your up that way and have a blast!
Well. I give this park 4.75 out of 5. Grindline makes killer parks. Just a bit funkier than the Dreamland parks but can accomodate every level skater and make you a better skater for skating there.
Thanks for the good times. Now back to the Pacific NOrthwest for me.