MOBASHin'
posted by jeremiah at 11:08 AM on 10/30/2006
Southwest Montana
Travis Bos recently sent some photos of the new public Big Sky Ramp. It is 5-6 feet high and a whopping 32 feet wide. Check it out in the media section. Supposedly there is also a small Grindline park in the works for Big Timber, Montana. Any more info on this post it in the Forum.
posted by jeremiah at 10:46 PM on 10/27/2006
Park Status Update
Supposedly the problem with the big Bowl in Butte (full of water, garbage) has been rectified. The Grafitti in Dillon has all been covered as well.
posted by jeremiah at 7:42 AM on
Charges filed in recent graffiti case
from the Dillon Tribune
By J.P. Plutt
Dillon Tribune staff
An adult and a juvenile have been cited for criminal mischief in connection with the graffiti at the Skate Park. Two to three other juveniles are under scrutiny and could be charged in the coming days.
Nickolai J. Gawsowski, 26, of Dillon, has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief, and a 17-year-old juvenile male has been cited into Juvenile Court on criminal mischief charges. According to Dillon Police Chief John Gutcheck, good leads on other alleged perpetrators, combined with more corrobative information should result in charges on a minimum of two and possibly three more juveniles in the near future.
"There have been a lot of contacts, not necassarily names, but descriptions," said Gutcheck of the unusual public response. "They have been coming forward with bits and pieces, which is like a puzzle. You put it all together and you get a big picture. Each little piece doesn't seem to fit anywhere until you start connecting the dots.
"We're obtaining a lot more information from people that are just outraged at what has taken place."
The Dillon Skatepark, one week old.
By J.P. Plutt
Dillon Tribune staff
An adult and a juvenile have been cited for criminal mischief in connection with the graffiti at the Skate Park. Two to three other juveniles are under scrutiny and could be charged in the coming days.
Nickolai J. Gawsowski, 26, of Dillon, has been arrested and charged with criminal mischief, and a 17-year-old juvenile male has been cited into Juvenile Court on criminal mischief charges. According to Dillon Police Chief John Gutcheck, good leads on other alleged perpetrators, combined with more corrobative information should result in charges on a minimum of two and possibly three more juveniles in the near future.
"There have been a lot of contacts, not necassarily names, but descriptions," said Gutcheck of the unusual public response. "They have been coming forward with bits and pieces, which is like a puzzle. You put it all together and you get a big picture. Each little piece doesn't seem to fit anywhere until you start connecting the dots.
"We're obtaining a lot more information from people that are just outraged at what has taken place."
The Dillon Skatepark, one week old.
posted by jeremiah at 4:46 PM on 10/24/2006
Park Photos
Photos of the Billings Skatepark and the Bozeman Skatepark have just been added to the Media section. Thanks to Jason Boyes and Travis Bos.
posted by jeremiah at 11:35 AM on 10/23/2006
Skate Montana Forum
We now officially have a forum. Check it out.
posted by jeremiah at 12:34 PM on 10/16/2006
Montana Skate Trip: Day 2 - Butte to Missoula
We woke in the morning in Dillon to about an inch of slushy snow on the car and it was still snowing pretty hard so quickly scratched the idea of skating Dillon for another day and made our way up to Butte, Montana and met up with J. Boyes en route from Billings, to skate the new Dreamland park there. It was still lightly snowing but the concrete was dry so we gave it a shot.
The Butte park is located East of the old historic district in a pretty run down area just on the edge of the Berkeley Pit (massive super fund site read more here). In fact the "Visitors Center" is pretty much right across the street. The land around the park is pretty much vacant except for some old mining leftovers. Guess I wouldn't want to live that close to the pit either. The park seems pretty fun with a little more streety stuff than usual and two bowls. One large one and one Kidney pool bowl. The drain in the large bowl wasn't working properly so it was filled with an eery green water, some trash and what looked like a dead rat. So we pretty much skated the kidney bowl and the street stuff. The street section had a step up, some various hips, rails and ledges as well as this big whale back bank wall thing that could be pretty fun.
From there we got some lunch in the old Historic District, which is really cool, and then decided we might as well hit Anaconda because it was right on they way.
Anaconda is another town that thrived on mining and then really died out once that ended. Right as you roll into town there is a big Smelter and a massive pile of black tailings. As we got into Anaconda it wasn't snowing anymore but it was blowing about 35 miles an hour and couldn't have been more than 38 degrees. That is what we get for doing a skate trip in Montana in mid October I suppose. The park in Anaconda is another Dreamland park built in 2005 I believe. It consists of one large bowl with a buch of small hip stuff in the shallow end and a street section that is basically two 3 foot quarter pipes with extensions and a table top in the middle. For being so cold we got a pretty good little session after warming up and then headed off to Missoula.
We arrived in Missoula at about 5:00 and it was sunny and relatively warm. We went straight over to the brand spankin new MOBASH skatepark and immediately got back in the groove. We had been skating all day at these parks in Arctic Tundra-like conditions with not a soul in sight. Now we were at Missoula skating in the sun with probably 75 people skating around the park. The Missoula park was definitely my favorite of the bunch. It was finished beautifully. It had a big bowl section with bank walls a cradle and deep area with pool coping. Then it had a kidney bowl behind that then a great looking street section that had some good flow between ledges and rails. The ledges looked to be finished in granite and there were fun bank walls all along the street section. And it's Lit at night! Great park. I was too lazy to bring a camera along to that one so you'll just have to trust me or go over to www.missoulaskatepark.org or do something like Search Flickr and check out some pictures there.
The Butte park is located East of the old historic district in a pretty run down area just on the edge of the Berkeley Pit (massive super fund site read more here). In fact the "Visitors Center" is pretty much right across the street. The land around the park is pretty much vacant except for some old mining leftovers. Guess I wouldn't want to live that close to the pit either. The park seems pretty fun with a little more streety stuff than usual and two bowls. One large one and one Kidney pool bowl. The drain in the large bowl wasn't working properly so it was filled with an eery green water, some trash and what looked like a dead rat. So we pretty much skated the kidney bowl and the street stuff. The street section had a step up, some various hips, rails and ledges as well as this big whale back bank wall thing that could be pretty fun.
From there we got some lunch in the old Historic District, which is really cool, and then decided we might as well hit Anaconda because it was right on they way.
Anaconda is another town that thrived on mining and then really died out once that ended. Right as you roll into town there is a big Smelter and a massive pile of black tailings. As we got into Anaconda it wasn't snowing anymore but it was blowing about 35 miles an hour and couldn't have been more than 38 degrees. That is what we get for doing a skate trip in Montana in mid October I suppose. The park in Anaconda is another Dreamland park built in 2005 I believe. It consists of one large bowl with a buch of small hip stuff in the shallow end and a street section that is basically two 3 foot quarter pipes with extensions and a table top in the middle. For being so cold we got a pretty good little session after warming up and then headed off to Missoula.
We arrived in Missoula at about 5:00 and it was sunny and relatively warm. We went straight over to the brand spankin new MOBASH skatepark and immediately got back in the groove. We had been skating all day at these parks in Arctic Tundra-like conditions with not a soul in sight. Now we were at Missoula skating in the sun with probably 75 people skating around the park. The Missoula park was definitely my favorite of the bunch. It was finished beautifully. It had a big bowl section with bank walls a cradle and deep area with pool coping. Then it had a kidney bowl behind that then a great looking street section that had some good flow between ledges and rails. The ledges looked to be finished in granite and there were fun bank walls all along the street section. And it's Lit at night! Great park. I was too lazy to bring a camera along to that one so you'll just have to trust me or go over to www.missoulaskatepark.org or do something like Search Flickr and check out some pictures there.
posted by jeremiah at 10:47 AM on 10/10/2006
Montana Skate Trip: Day 1 - Dillon
Our first stop on our Fall Mini Montana road trip was Dillon, Montana, where there is a new Grindline skatepark that was finished just a couple of weeks ago dubbed the "Racetrack." This park is unique because it basically forms a figure eight that you can skate in either direction with a big metal full pipe through the middle that was donated by someone local during the construction. It also has a rollover that crosses over the top of the tube. We arrived mid day in Dillon to about a dozen kids on Razor scooters and bikes falling all over the bowl and a couple kids skating the little mini park section. There was also some fresh graffiti all over the thing including a glaring swastika so please disregard that in our pictures. Every little kid in the park knew who did it, so hopefully the kid got what was coming to him.
Our initial impression was that it was a little bit smaller than we expected based on pictures we had seen and it was pretty tricky to figure out at first. After a couple roll arounds you kind of get the feel for the flow and then you can really start pumping it. It has a mix of pool coping and metal coping with the pool coping in most of the corners. It also has some speed bumps built in that allow you to create new lines with out just riding the figure 8 the whole time. Overall though this park seems to have and endless variety of stuff to figure out and is definitely one of, if not, the most unique park I have ever skated.
Our initial impression was that it was a little bit smaller than we expected based on pictures we had seen and it was pretty tricky to figure out at first. After a couple roll arounds you kind of get the feel for the flow and then you can really start pumping it. It has a mix of pool coping and metal coping with the pool coping in most of the corners. It also has some speed bumps built in that allow you to create new lines with out just riding the figure 8 the whole time. Overall though this park seems to have and endless variety of stuff to figure out and is definitely one of, if not, the most unique park I have ever skated.
posted by jeremiah at 7:57 PM on 10/08/2006
On Deck Art Auction
Please check out the On Deck Art Auction put on by the Missoula Skatepark Association. You can Bid on the decks online until October 6th and then they will hold a live Auction at the Raven in Missoula that night so check it out if you are in the area. This is a fundraiser for the Missoula Skatepark Association and there are some pretty impressive pieces by some well known people in the arty-skatey community. If your not bidding you should still check out all the skateboards on display.
Check it out here:
On-Deck Art Auction
Check it out here:
On-Deck Art Auction
posted by jeremiah at 10:49 PM on 10/04/2006
It Feels like the First Time
So a while back I thought about putting something like this together (and I had this lame placeholder page for like a year and a half). Then I began helping out with the Whitefish Skateboard Association site putting together the design and getting content for that site and it ended up covering much more than just the Whitefish Skatepark. Then this swarm of new amazing skateparks began popping up all over Montana and we began seeing a lot of interest in the area with people coming over from all over the Northwest or further on a daily basis. It seemed like you could go to the Whitefish or Polson park on any given day and meet someone from out of town or that was on their own little skateboard road trip around Montana to check out all the new stuff going on. Spirit Skateshop in Kalispell rallied a team and made a shop road trip and video. "Tony Hawk's Secret Skatepark Tour" comes through to turn the Grand Opening of the Missoula park into an all-out Circus complete with portable vert ramp. It seems skate-related stuff is happening all over the state. So it is about time we have a resource for the budding yet distant skate scene in the Treasure State. It is still a huge work in progress because this is all done in spare time but if your interested in helping out, adding photos, posting news, events, sharing footage or just see some glaring errors send us an email at info@skatemontana.com.
posted by jeremiah at 9:51 PM on
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