Skatepark Tour - La Center, WA (USA)

One day last week I found myself in Portland, OR; up early in the morning and awaiting an arriving flight into PDX to pick up a friend. I haven’t fully explored the Portland skate scene, and was determined to do so. However, forgetting the kids are still out of school; the first two parks I went to quickly became overran with scooter kids. I am not a scooter kid hater- I just would prefer to not be around a hundred children treating the skatepark like a playground, leaving obstacles in blind spots, and generally just having no skatepark etiquette. So, as I surrendered to the army of aluminum-wielding chaos agents, I found myself about half an hour north in La Center, Washington.

Tucked into (what seems like) a small farming community outside of the metro area, lies a surprisingly well-built and modern skatepark. It is on the perimeter of a larger park; with both bathrooms and water fountains; the hard-to-find essentials at skateparks.

A strip of street features await skaters who probably stumble upon this park pretty randomly. I don’t know much about the town, and I might be talking out of my ass, but I will say there didn’t seem to be much going on around the area and despite the fact that literally every other skatepark I tried to go to on this specific day was PACKED- well, I pulled up to La Center and only saw one other person.

When I say “strip” I mean it. I think the widest park of the park is likely 20 feet- and thats just to accommodate a clamshell. It is fairly long, and it would be difficult to establish a good flow with the changing grade and amount of features crammed into the space. That being said, they did one hell of a job; because the park somehow flows perfectly.

Skating in from the parking lot, you’re met first by a small ledge (first photo) that somehow seems to be downhill on both sides. After that, a short but high square stock flat bar with an opposing ledge. I was so happy about the flat bar; they are a surprisingly rare commodity in this area.

A couple of nice ledges at the top of the four stair to keep things moving. They are super fun; although the placement is a little awkward. I was skating alone so it wasn’t an issue, BUT I could see skating these ledges as almost impossible with people flowing through the park. In fact, it’d be hard to skate this park with more than a couple people in general, but hey, fuck it, it’s fucking awesome and that’s all that matters.

I had to throw in pictures of both sides of this puppy here. It’s like a euro cut into a roller. I didn’t skate it very much but in all honesty it’s kinda fuckin terrifying. But, I also suck, so I bet it’s fun if you don’t 😂 The rainbow ride on coping left on the side of the roller is pretty fun; and you kinda have to pop out of it, which is pretty interesting. I didn’t touch that damn ledge on the side of the roller; that’s a little much for me. BUT AGAIN, it looks really fun for people better/less scared than me. Maybe my next visit I’ll try to eat shit on it.

To wrap things up we have this super interesting kinda pyramid/clamshell combo thing, followed by a quarter to kinda mark the end of the strip. It was a little difficult to navigate speed over here; I either came off the clam shell cookin’- which would be fine but the quarter kinda has some shady weather-wear going on and I would shoot off into the grass - or I was going too slow to really feel the clam like I wanted to.

I mean, realistically, a fucking AWESOME park I stumbled upon completely on accident. This area of the United States is just absolutely covered in hidden gems like these that get forgotten in the land of world class skateparks. I got some life shit figured out and am looking forward to skating more and sharing these spots with y’all! Keep pushin’ party people 🖤