Balmy copper-orange spring skies, a wet & westerly chinook and sudden sprouts of green along the edges of the city’s sidewalks signaled the first fertile teaser of balmy weather over the weekend.
And while Missoulians seemed eager, in general, to get out and take it all in, no locale was more populated with the celebration of spring’s first rites than the new Missoula Skatepark, located downslope of the western berm of the Orange Street Bridge.
At any given time on Saturday, at least a hundred young boarders, mostly adolescent males, took turns traversing the swails, dips, ramps, bowls and fences of the newest Missoula City park.
Constructed over the summer of 2006 through the support of numerous local groups and Missoula Parks & Recreation Dept., the facility was christened last Sept. 24 by several hundred spectators, who watched famed professional skateboarder, Tony Hawk, give the facility a thorough test ride.
On this spring weekend though, it was the site for regular joes... boarders as young as 4-5 and perhaps as old as 35 or so, out in force to work out the kinks of a winter-full of sclerotic inactivity.
I was taken by the scenic “backdrop” of the view behind the park to the north. Framed by the spire of the St. Francis Xavier Church to the west and the sturdy dome of the City-County Courthouse to the east, with the still-snowbound Rattlesnake Wilderness in the distance, the park presents a striking view of the city’s scenic northern rim.
Most important though is that this is a new park for a distinct (sometimes outcast) minority, formerly outsiders whose sport has now been dubbed legit with the establishment of a beautiful and functional facility.
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