Denver, the rest of the trip.... Skate Parks Galore

I thought I was going to keep a daily record of where we went to skate and how it all went down, but once I started to hit place after place or just skate session after session, I was to tired or involved to keep track of anything other than the next jaunt. This is the first down time that I have had since the trip began really. The irony of today is sitting here at the Denver Airport all day because of a mix up on my ticket. When I re-booked my flight the lady told me it was a 740 AM flight, well, now that I am here at the airport bright and early I find out that the flight leaves at 740 PM, hmm... Whatever, so I am stuck because I can't get cell service to call my brother and getting him to come pick me up and then drive me back, man, if only I had cell service.

I gave a brief update on Monday, we did not even skate a park, just looked at Redstone Park that was over run my kids on the Razor skooters, BMX bikes and young skaters. That is just the way these parks go, they are said to be hit or miss depending on their location. Highly inhabited suburbia with easy access to the park makes for a busy place. We ended up finding a parking lot and skating a curb. Photos.

On Tuesday my brother John and I headed to Roxborough Park  in the afternoon after I got off work. We were about to go to Cornerstone Park  but were persuaded other wise by some Memphis Folk (Hammond and Kim).  Good call... Roxborough is located to the very far west of Denver and right next to were the mountain range starts to jettison out of the earth, so the views are spectacular. This park has two distinct parts to skate as many of the parks have, a flow/street section and some big bowls. The way these parks flow is different in each park, not one of their flow/street sections were the same.  Roxborough's emphasis was much more into transition as the flow section went. There was a pocket of tansitions that had a quarter that then opened up into a section of that had many different lines and tranny. Just look at the photos from the web site. Then there are two bowls, like a smaller eight foot bowl and then a larger, maybe, 12 foot bowl, could be smaller. Roxborough was our favorite place to skate. We did not make it back, but if you ever go to Denver you got to hit this park. I also dropped Wrex Cook's name and sure enough, I met this guy named Cameron that knew Wrex well. PHOTOS

Wednesday was a bust since it rained all day. This was the last day of my job in Denver, I was free to wonder about after today. I turned in my rental car, checked out of the hotel and found a nice corner in my brothers apartment. He is located across the street from Denver City Park (not skate park) and just a few blocks from the famous Blue Bird theater, I mean the Dwarves are playing there this next week. Now I was sleeping on the couch, surviving off Cliff Bars and drinking what ever was in the fridge (PBR.)

Thursday the weather turned out to decent with sunshine and cloud coverage. I rode with my brother to school were I then took over the Ford Escape and headed to a park in Edgewater named Walker Branch. This is one of my brothers go to spots since it is five minutes from where he goes to school. Pictures of Walker Branch dont look like much but this was my second favorite place to skate. I skated this park a good part of the day until my little bro got done with class. I think we sessioned Walk Branch first then headed to Lafayette Park. Lafayette is pretty far north, almost to Boulder. It was kind of remote but that did not mean it was full of kids on skooters and many local kids just out for a shred in the park. It had everything there, flow section, mini bowl with pump bump in the center, big bowls, medium bowl with a mini snake run, street stuff, marble many pad. I just dont know how to properly describe the park, please check the web site link or look at my Photos. I was so tired from hitting Walker Branch all day that I did not have a lot of energy. My legs were starting to cry out a bit from hitting so much tight tranny. That is the thing in all these parks so far, all the tranny is 6 1/2 or steeper from what I can tell were I am used to 7 1/2 or 8. We decided to skip Broomfield, which looks to have some nice bowls and a very heavy street ledge section, but we were getting super tired, so we went home. That night I hung out with Mike Eck and he took me to some Steam Punk themed bar in I dont know were Denver. Very cool though. Photos.

Friday started out super early since I dropped my bro off before 8am at school and headed to Denver Skate Park which is located right next to the Bronco's stadium. I had heard rumors that Dpark  is kind of ruled by local skaters. That outsiders get a vibe from the local shredder's like they own the park and dont want you skating in their lines. I showed up so early that I thought I was safe for there was only one guy skating along with me. So I started hitting mellow stuff, some banks and a some of the flow bowls, minding my own business. Then out of no where the lone guy skating the park started skating were I was skating, like he was skating circles around were I was skating. He got pissed at me at one point because I was standing near a ledge he wanted to hit although he had not hit it since I had been there. I moved to another section but he showed up there as well. After a while I was like what the hell. On top of that my legs had no strength in them, I guess from skating so much. After a while I just quit, what a dick man...that guy just ruined it for me. So I left there and went for some lunch, picked up my bro and did a lunch hour session of Walker branch again. The more I went to Walker Branch the more you got to see who showed up and the better I got at understanding the lines. After Walker Branch I decided to just rest and wait for Saturday. John had heard about this bowl in neighborhood off a street named Xanthis just ten minutes from his apartment. It is a nice little bowl, mellow but again was over run by kids on scooter and young teenagers who just want to drop in at then air out of the bowl. It was ridiculousness, but we will try again tomorrow. That night we went to Red Rocks for my first time to see some Standard Snowboard Movie, it was fun, Red Rocks is amazing. Photos.

Saturday was epic!! We woke up and went back to the Xanthia Street Bowl. There were a couple of shredders there but no annoying kids, except one. We basically had the bowl to ourselves. Such a fun little peanut bowl that has a three foot shallow section that feeds into a deeper 6 foot section with a 7ft extension. The tranny was super mellow, just made for good time. We then regrouped back to the apartment, made some calls and headed back to Walker Branch after picking up one of my brother's friends. We got to Walker Branch and the rain settled in just enough to make us drive North, this time to Northglen. Northglen was pretty dope, had a big bowl and street section that was set up to flow. You will have to look at my photos since the park is brand new and the site has not been updated. There were a lot of kids and skooters but by this time we don't care anymore, why let those kids spoil all your fun. So we skated and owned since that is what you have to do. After we eventually got tired of fighting skate traffic at Northglen we went bak to Walker Branch. My legs and lungs were back up to full strength. We so owned Walker Branch, I was skating every inch of that place now, never stopping except for the occasional breather. I was really getting the feel for the steep tranny after my last day of skating. My brother had to tear me away from the park, I did not want to leave, just one more run. Well, we went bak to the apartment, hung with a few peeps and then went back to the Xanthia bowl. It had rained again, in that area so the bowl was a little wet but deserted except for a couple of other shredders who were having just as much fun as us. Photos

Sunday, sitting at Denver International, thought I was going to be able to skate Al Town today, jokes on me. This was the first time I got to take in the whole experience of Denver. It is a very chill city with lots to do, skated parks every where, great food and a crap load of traffic. There are bicycles every where and you can just about get any where in the metro area as fast as a car, but then you need a car for getting out to the burbs where some of the primo spots are. Great City to live in for sure. Then you can get a Summit County ski pass for about $450 and snowboard all winter. Anyway, I just rebooted my phone and I got coverage now, lets see if my brother comes and picks me up for a few hours. later.