Utah is run by Mormons so you would think the skateparks would suck - wrong. Utah has some pretty sick parks. South Jordan near Salt Lake is a favorite. Recently though a park was built near Park City, In Heber City to be exact. Probably the most unique thing about is the street area(s). There are kind of 4 different sections that could be skated seperatly or together. The aperk is open till 11, free, no pad nannies. It was definitely worth the detour from Salt Lake

Snake run into the street area

Street

Street section into the little pool shallow end to launch you back up

Big Ol Kidney

Deep Combi Pool

The medium bowl - so sick for all the scooter kids in town

I was there for way too short of a time. If you want to see more, check out Ray Zimmerman’s story here

http://www.concretedisciples.com/cd_articles/cd_articles4.php?articles=788″

Just randomly was watching the Search for Animal Chin on Fuel Tv the other night. There is a scene where Tommy Guerrero, Lance Mountain, Tony Hawk, Mike McGill search for Chin at Chris Bosrst’s ramp in Bakersfield. Also at the session were Ray Underhill (rip) Adrian Demain and a few others. The very next day I asked Adrian to do a trick from the movie. He said when he did this trick in the movie he was actually trying to do a version of the rocket air but never got enough airtime. The kids at the ramp (in 2008) were so stoked on Adrian’s new old trick. They were asking him if he just made it up and so on. Little did they know it was over 20 years ago when he did it

At a mere 14 Chaz Ortiz won the 4th stop of the Dew Tour this past weekend in Salt Lake City Utah. So that brings up the question, where will he go to next? Skateboarding seems to be getting as image conscious as say the fashion industry. You gotta ride certain brands, have a certain look or you can be doomed to a life of demos and contests only. Sucks but it is partially true. Most kids get into skateboarding because it is something that supposedly allows you to express your individuality. For the most part that is true but go down the wrong path with your image and it is contests for life. I first saw Chaz skate at the Volcom Damn Am about 2 years ago and thought “that kid is good if only he can get some power”. Well at the age of fourteen he is getting his power, if things keep continuing on the path that they are he will be good enough to not have to create some image and say f it all and do whatever he wants. Chaz has been coming up the Dew Tour ranks this year but in Salt Lake he beat some pretty heavy riders to take an un-disputed first place. It would be cool to see how he could fare against Chris Cole or any number of other guys.

Let’s see how he did it. The format was there were qualifiers on the weekdays. The finals consisted of the top 12 and they got two runs each. Of those 12 the top 6 were placed in a 7 minute jam. The best of the first 2 runs counted as 60% of the score and the final jam counted as 40% or so it was overheard. Usually in the top 5, P-rod was having an off day and taking some bails, of course an off day for him is a super good day for most skateboarders but he only got 8th overall. Greg Lutzka qualified 3rd for the final jam but ended up 4th overall. Rodolfo Ramos qualified 5th or 6th for the final jam but consistency paid off and he got 4th overall. Ryan Shckler bailed on his first of 2 runs but his run was so tough that he ended up in first. Chaz had no bails his first run but had a less challenging run and ended up tying Ryan for first after run one. They both stepped it up a bit more but Ryan did not fall on his second, more challenging run and was first going into the final jam. In the final jam it was neck and neck until about halfway through when Chaz walked away with it. So nice work Chaz.

The Salt Lake stop was sponsored by Toyota and you could drive around in a “Lutzka tuned car” which is probably not a big deal if you are all over 30, driven a million miles and jaded but surely the young kids were stoked on it

The course looked fun - picnic tables, jersey barriers and the first time in the arena for the Dew Tour. It was the biggest crowd for a street skate contest at the Dew Tour so far. A lot of the Dew Tour events are sold out but this time more seats were available for street. BMX, usually indoors was outside, hmm does that mean skateboarding draws more people?

P-rod - not having problems here

Chaz Ortiz kickflips to front lip. You think this is hard wait till you see what he does at the end of the event - some Rodney Mullen type stuff on a rail

Sheckler girls, this picture either stokes you or make you super bummed

Rodolfo Ramos with a big ollie up and over the gap to lipslide

Adam Dyet is from Salt Lake and had a lot of fans in the arena. I asked him if he slept in his old bed at his parents he so, they live too far from downtown and he stayed in a hotel

Adam Dyet - 5-0

Goo Goo Ramos does a super solid front 190 to switch over crooks, you could here the clank throughout the venue

Sheckler gets the big transfer. Later on in the contest this gap is where things changed. Sheckler and Ortiz were both trying to back 180 flip this transfer and Ortiz got it first, Sheckler did not even try the back 180 flip transfer after that

Sheckler - kickflip to back lip

P-rod - switch front flip

Kurtis Colamonico blunts to fakie

Greg Lutzka - 270 to blunt

Carlos De Andrade - Tre flip

Sheckler up and over

Chaz Ortiz - kickflip to front board to kickflip out, this pretty much sealed the deal for Chaz

Chaz with a nollie 270 to back lip

Ryan - right after finals but before the winner was announced

Dyet

Chaz, right before he was announced the winner

and right after he was announced the winner. So he goes back and tells his friends, yea I won 15k and Ryan Sheckler this weekend and asks them what they did and they will say, oh played video games

Of course Salt lake is home to the center of the Mormon religion and here is the Temple. Just some local stuff

1 Chaz Ortiz
2 Ryan Sheckler
3 Rodolfo Ramos
4 Greg Lutzka
5 Carlos De Andrade
6 Austen Seaholm

Oregon has endless parks, unfortunately for me this is the end of the line for my Oregon explorations. I could be happy spending days each of the parks, skating, shooting and so on. Met some cool people skated so much good stuff.

Holly Farms is in SW Portland, just off the I-5 and built by Dreamland. It sits in a little park just like the swings; no fence, no real rules, just a little skatepark, no big deal. Pretty much every town should have parks like this. It is shaped like a donut with a little spine in the middle. It is kind of a challenge to ride. At first it seems kind of like a stupid design but the more time you spend there the more you see the lines. It is not straightforward like say a kidney, then again you may not get as bored as a kidney

The roll in into the Holly Farms Bowl had some sick lines in and of itself. So funny there was someone skating Holly Farms that I had seen the week prior almost 300 miles away at Brookings

You could skate these brick banks for hours at Holly Farms

Tigard is another Dreamland piece of work, recently finished. The flow area has this little double section that offers a ton of transfer lines.

Here is the left side of the flow bowl. It backs up to a mini bowl and the skateable dinosaur. Man I wish I had more time to get some decent photos on the trip

Some ledges drop you into the big square bowl with ALL sorts of crazy obstacles; brick banks, a volcano with a top the goes a round, transition to banks, a dinosaur hip, a square bowl and more!

You could air this hip and tap the dinosaur – so rad

The Volcano (the top of it spins) the steep ass brick banks and on the left the beginning of the big ass bank wall

wtf? A square corner craziness at Tigard

Pier Park is a GNARLY park, tons of vert in this bowl and you could spend tons of time figuring this out. There is smaller stuff too but it was getting time to move along

Benji Galloway at Pier Park, this photo was stolen too I did not take it but still wanted to share it with you. If you were going to do a skate trip Oregon should be one of your top picks. I have only scratched the surface here too there is way more

Bad Ass is this this photo of Mike Barnes going frontal through the corner at Tigard! It shows the gnarliness of Oregon. The photo was taken by John Yonker and stolen from Concrete Disciples, they got a good little article on the Trifecta comin up
Check out concretedisciples.com