Dreamparks of the Northwest

Keith Eric Davidson (EXPN.com) -- 10/30/2003

Halloween, 1991. Portland skateboarders Bret Taylor and Mark "Red" Scott begin construction on The Burnside Project, what is to become the most legendary renegade skatepark in the country. With no experience and using their own money and labor, the pair handcrafted a revolutionary skatepark unmatched in quality to this day.

Hidden beneath a freeway overpass, Burnside is known throughout the world as one of the gnarliest, most creative skateparks ever built. The skaters who created it had total say in its construction from the beginning until its completion somewhere around 1995. Forgoing the normal time-consuming process of city council meetings and political red tape typical of city-built parks, skaters who were fed up with having no good parks to skate joined together and created their own.

Donald, Oregon: Just a bit south of Portland, this park is located in a little tiny farming community of 700 people. Ah, farmland and a gnarly, perfect backyard pool that cost $30,000 to construct and is perfect for Andy Harris leintaps. Go figure.

It's true that we are currently in the midst of a skatepark construction boom, but most of the free parks being built by city planners are nothing more than an excuse for the cops to kick skaters off the street. So the dudes in the Northwest figured if they want their parks done right, they had to build them themselves.

That was the motivation behind Dreamland Skateparks, Red's construction company in Portland, which today churns out hands-down the best parks in the world. He refined the crude construction techniques used to build Burnside and developed techniques specific to skatepark construction. One of his innovations is a hand-built trowel which creates perfectly smooth transitions. Rail by rail, bowl by bowl, he honed the park-building process.

The do-it-yourself aesthetic was also the motivation for Mark Hubbard—a critical member of the crew that built Burnside—to start his Seattle-based company, Grindline Skateparks. The end result: skateparks designed, developed and built entirely by skateboarders.

The parks these two companies create are, without question, the best skateparks in the world, and it's no surprise a majority of them are located in their native Northwest region. But the companies don't limit themselves to Oregon and Washington. Dreamland and Grindline build parks all over the world. Dreamland even built a private bowl in the Montana backyard of Jeff Ament, the bass player for Pearl Jam.

Anyone who has seen these guys skate understands why the parks they build are unmatched. They are some of the gnarliest skaters around. When they build a park, they make it big and challenging, something that won't become boring and outdated within a couple of years. They know once the concrete dries, it's there for good.

Their parks are trademarked with PNW-gnar like massive pipes emptying into huge pool coping-crowned pools, over-vert bowled-out cradles, rotating pillars, endless miles of concrete coping, hips galore, spines and perfect mini-pools. If you can dream it, these guys have already built it. And when they finish, they skate 'em like no one else.