Skateboard Junction at Escape Country - Trabuco Canyon, CA

Massive ten acre skatepark built in an outdoor adventure park better known for motorcycle racing

Giant in scale, but perhaps not in difficulty. Skateboard Junction was an asphalt park that included: -a 300 foot long, 165 foot wide bowl with banks up to 20 feet in size -a half mile long giant slalom course called “grapevine” that connected to the western edge of the bowl -a 30 x 100 foot long conventional slalom run -a full acre freestyle section with banked walls -a downhill track with an electronic timer

Escape Country was a private recreational park that opened in the Fall of 1971 and featured camping, off-roading, horseback riding, fishing, hang gliding, model airplaning, hot air ballooning and its most famous attraction: dirt-track motorcycle racing.

It was originally the Robinson family ranch, and there was a great deal of unregulated activity going on. In 1975, owner and manager Jim Robinson drafted a petition for Escape Country to secede from Orange County because of the “constant harassment from officials.”

That harassment was essentially the county trying to get them to comply with laws.

County Supervisor Phillip Anthony said, “Their track record (was) deplorable.”

A rock concert in January 1977 was shut down by the police for not being adequately permitted, and 1,700 people who turned out would not leave. Traffic was blocked out of the canyon and drunken attendees were reportedly out of control. A highway patrolman said the scene “looked like the Six Day War."

The park was shut down for 90 days for this incident, and during that time Escape Country was then sued for a wrongful death.

Escape country then tried to divide its land up, turn the north side into a trailer park and keep the motorcycle tracks on the south side. In November 1977, they forfeited their permits for the north side of the park, and the skate park was officially out of business.