hopeless old men on skateboards

I was psyched 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.

There was this rad Warren Bolster shot of a young Tom Inouye from Skateboarder magazine vol. 3 no. 4 from 1977. I still have that mag. Never mind how rad the surf-style off-the-lip kickturn and the dude’s flying hair and scabbed knee looked, the thing that excited me the most was that the kid was japanese!

Growing up as a half-japanese kid in southern California I was fairly insulated from racism. We occasionally got the J-word hurled at us by some bitter old cracker that we had annoyed, but in the middle class suburbs of burritos, little-league baseball and low-riders, I was just a slightly different shade of brown.

The other side of my upbringing was Southern California beach culture, surfer vans and sunshine, and early morning trips to the beach to surf. Visually, those kids were all aryan and the German side of my genome just wasn’t expressing. All I could hope was that the sun and salt water would streak my dark hair.

It was so rad to see a that Japanese dude in Skateboarder Magazine just doing the most radical frontside kickturn. I had taken the bait but that photo set the hook. That photo was an early influence in making skateboarding a life-long obsession for me.

Bryce, Rich Burton and MC drove to Hood River to meet Wally. Chris and Rockin’ Ron were flying into Spokane, WA that night, so we hit the road in the more spacious Inouye family minivan trying to decide on short-session options on the way to Spokane. MC was the first one to say, are we there yet?

Tom Inouye photo by Rich Burton

First stop Pendleton, home of a recent Dreamland skatepark. Standout features include a big flow bowl with multiple hip and coping options, vert extension, boulders sculpted into the park and an oversized brick-bank-to-jersey-barrier wall. Sun angle was brutal by the time the crew got there but the park is really fun. The bowl was empty of locals, plenty of runs for the road trippers who only had a short time to spare. Highlight of the stop had to be Wally wheeling the big Jersey wall.

MC photo by Bryce Kanights

Walla Walla was about 45 miles away and it was getting late. Tom Reece, one of the guys responsible for commissioning the Dreamland-built bowl said there would be time for a twenty-minute session by the time the Portland/Hood River crew arrived – but the locals had just acquired a generator and were looking to try out a night session. The Walla Walla bowl is amazing. 6′ to 10’3″ walls in a “U” shape with a foot-wide spine between them, Tedders or custom granite coping blocks all around, hips, love seat and four-foot vert extension. The bowl was perfect and with the a bunch of lights running off the generator, we sessioned until well after dark despite the 180 miles we still had to drive to meet Strople and Rockin’ Ron.

Rolling into the Spokane airport Ramada Inn about midnight we saw a bunch of cops converging on a fresh t-bone accident (no other cars around at that time of night but these guys managed to hit each other), found the hotel, woke the Californians and checked into some overpriced accommodations for the night. In the morning we planned to hit one of the Spokane parks but missed the exit and decided to skip it. “Maybe on the way back,” was an expression that got used a few times, we skipped Sandpoint and McCall, Idaho that way too.

The crew, now six strong and dubbed Team 283 – our combined ages – decided breakfast would be in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. MC spotted an old skatepark – a few lumps of concrete and a few metal modular ramps on asphalt. What the heck? A few runs before breakfast sounded good. Breakfast was only marginally better than the skateboarding and soon it was time to get back on the road.

Arriving in Missoula, Montana. We met Jeff and Adam of Montana Pool Service at Grindline’s Missoula skatepark. The crew stretched their legs in the big flow bowl with cradle, banks and vert bowl; various ledge and hip configurations; and a fun, wide open left kidney pool with shallow-end steps and wide death box. The finish is super polished so watch those quick turns. We skated the mostly empty park for a while an then left to meet Jeff and Randy Katen at the Montana Pool Service compound.

Bryce and Jeff photos by Rich Burton. Rich photo by Bryce Kanights

The MPS bowl was built this summer by Dreamland. Randy and Kim Petersen met the crew at the five-to-eight-foot deep peanut with a round and a sharp hip, stamped tile line and Tedders coping — a perfect session at the end of the day with the Treasure Bowl to look forward to in the days to come.

With Jeff, Adam, Kim, Bodie and Keenan in one car and Team 283 in the minivan, the plan for the Saturday was Anaconda, Butte and Helena. A phone call on the way confirmed some suspected seepage problems at Anaconda (not only would it be wet but Anaconda is also the home of a huge SuperFund cleanup site where:

Nine decades of smelting operations have contaminated the local and surrounding soils (700 km2), groundwater, and the Clark Fork River. The five principal contaminants include arsenic, cadmium, copper, lead and zinc.

A little seepage begins to sound more ominous.

MC, Bryce and Wally photo by Rich Burton

Maybe everyone was just excited to check out the new Dreamland creation in Helena. The existing skatepark has been expanded with a vert bowl and an unusual bowl-in-a-bowl as well as some new street obstacles and banks. The crew lucked into a free feed-the-skaters barbecue courtesy of the local community and manned by belt-knifed and bluetooth headsetted Glimm the operatic grill operator. Glimm claimed to have honed his skills feeding storm victims as part of a disaster relief effort. And busted some high notes while the crew enjoyed some burgers in the shade. After lunch we got in a second session. Helena has some great lines, Tedders coping and a Dreamland finish. We had some great multi-skater trains in the doughnut and MC spent a good part of the day trying to transfer over the loveseat/hip in the big bowl. It was a tired crew that piled into the cars for the drive to Butte.

Randy Katen and Rockin' Ron photos by Rich Burton

A parade of giant dump trucks working the Butte Hill and drive-by shoutings of “skater fags!” is the backdrop to Dreamland’s Butte skatepark but the site of the park perked everyone up.

Butte is another part of Montana with a toxic history. We heard tales of a flock of geese landing in the flooded Berkeley Pit mine and dying instantly. According to the Montana Environmental Information Center The soil in the area, and the attic dust in many of the buildings, is contaminated with mercury, lead, cadmium, copper, and arsenic. Probably a good idea to avoid the drinking fountains at the Butte park too.

A street area with some unusual banks and a big right-kidney pool abut the parking lot at Butte, followed by an open pit of a bowl with big bank wall and wide love seat. The sun was blinding heading into the deep ends of both bowls and the flat bank waterfall in the pool made things interesting for a while but the crew adapted. Ron charged right over the big loveseat followed shortly by Randy and MC. After taking three tries to climb out of the pit, Wally decided his energy would be better spent ripping the big left-kidney bowl. Kim had to do some regulating on bicycling kids on the deck and a group of surly high-schoolers playing hackey-sack in the bowl. Bryce had MC working Andrechts in the big bowl and by the end of the day Ron was blowing minds hucking frontside airs out of the pit on his eight-wheeler.

A stop for dinner saw the crew back in Missoula too late to skate but the Treasure Bowl was on for the next morning. The bowl, shaped like the outline of the state of Montana, is a few years old but it’s in good shape and has a spectacular view over the valley. It features a 9 ft. rectangular deep end and various hips and pockets and a roll-in. Kim joined us again for the early session. She had obviously skated the thing before and was ripping. Strople showed us some fully-extended grinding Bertlemans through the oververt. Far too soon it was time to head out to get Chris and Ron back to Spokane for their flights home.

We stopped in St Regis, Montana to view big trout in fish tanks and to pick up road gifts for family back home. Strople bought a fifth of Everclear on sale for his wife, despite the advice of the woman behind the counter at the liquor store, “honey, the half-gallon is the better value.”

After dropping the Californians at the Spokane airport the depleted Team 188 pushed on to Yakima to check out the new Grindline skatepark there. Unfortunately the sun had set by the time the van pulled into the lot. A few runs under the meager street lights were enough to admire some novel features and good finish work. Definitely worth a trip back in the daytime sometime in the future.

Photo by Rich Burton

A few more hours back to Hood River, crazy lights on the wind generators popping up in the Columbia Gorge like weeds. Goodbyes and another hour back to Portland by midnight. The round-trip was about 1500 miles total.

L to R: Mark Conahan, Chris Strople, Rich Burton, Jeff Ament, Wally Inouye, Bryce Kanights, Rockin’ Ron. Thanks for taking our picture Kim!

Between Ron holding forth on bearing and truck tech and Inouye and Strople regaling the group with tales of the glory days, visiting seven skateparks and two private bowls, finally getting to sample some of what Montana’s has to offer skatepark-wise, shepherded by our gracious hosts at Monatana Pool Service – it was an amazing trip.

Check out more photos of the trip at Earth Patrol.

MC