5th Street Skatepark - Driggs, Idaho, U.S.A.

Driggs is a town of about 5000 in eastern Idaho, next to the Wyoming state line and near Jackson Hole. As you can imagine, a small town with lots of gravel streets offers very little to skate. There were endless complaints from the owners of the few skate-able spots and from the skaters. The 5th St. skatepark is the result of efforts by some skaters' mothers and the town of Driggs to provide a fun and challenging skate facility that would be legal and safe from traffic etc. The moms formed the Teton Valley Skateclub with not-for-profit status. The city of Driggs offered space in a not-yet-improved 10 acre park. 5th St. Park will eventually provide playground, picnicking, snow-sledding, Frisbee golf, a bmx track, and possibly other recreational facilities along with the skatepark. After about 3? years of fund-raising and meetings with the town, we are at the end of Phase 2, having spent $58,000. A small portion of that was tax money with the bulk coming from donations. Phase 1 was built during September '02 by a local concrete contractor with volunteer labor. It was designed by the Skateclub to offer "street" skating but also provide some transition in the form of wood quarter-pipes and concrete bowled corners. Opened at the end of September, it was a big success with very nice concrete and wood work. Phase 2 was designed to offer pool-style vertical skating. Some Skateclub members had skated some of the Oregon parks, where the parks created by Dreamland clearly stood out as the best. Dreamland was contacted and offered our small contract which was enthusiastically accepted. We were VERY excited to get them! Lodging was donated along with excavation. The perfectly arced coping was onsite when Mark Scott arrived. By the end of the first week he had the bowl ready for concrete with help from the Skateclub. Four other Dreamland concrete shapers arrived and two weeks later, Phase 2 was rideable. The Dreamland guys worked HARD for long hours, six days a week, and never wasted a dime of our money! They worked as though it was their own money for their own skatepark. From initial plans for the addition of just a bowl, we were able to add a large 6 ft. bowled corner, a small miniramp, and other improvements thanks to the volunteer labor input, primarily from Mark Goddard. Mark's overtime contributions spanned from design and co-ordination with Dreamland through welding and backhoe operation to rebar bending and concrete finish work. Now the park's been ridden for about 3 weeks to completely positive response. The bowl is pretty tight and will challenge and delight any vert skater. It's about 1500 square feet in area and just under 10 feet in maximum depth. There's a squared shallow end about 5 ft. in depth that's well under vertical and offers a halfpipe for coping tricks. It rolls off about 3 feet into the deep end that's formed into two lobes. One is more open with some straight sections of coping, and just goes to vertical at the coping. The other lobe is a tight pocket with about the top 2 feet over vertical. There are 3 hips. The coping is 3 inches diameter in perfectly machine-bent smooth arcs. Dreamland got the concrete very nearly perfect, there are no kinks or rough spots, with nice big transitions. The bowl carves very well with many flowing carving lines. It also provides the hips for flying. A skater can also fly out of the bowl, land on a ramp, and ride into the rest of the park. There's a shallow ramp from the bowl's rim down 3 feet to the rest of the park. With a grinding block at the top of the ramp, there is some protection against loose boards falling into the bowl. The city of Driggs is enthusiastic about the skatepark and helped with landfill and has provided signs, along with a port-a-john and trash receptacles. I was told by a city planner that the continuous complaints about skaters ended completely with the opening of the skatepark. We're having a grand opening August 16 with some prizes, food, music, a dance and bonfire, and lots of skating. In the future, Phase 3 will expand the park with more area for "street" skating, but will have to wait until funds are available. Driggs is located in the Teton Basin, alongside the Teton Mountains. It's on Idaho highway 33, about an hour from interstate highway I-15 and Idaho Falls. There is one stoplight on Main St. at the corner of Little Avenue. 5th St. is 5 blocks east on Little. 5th St. Park is 2 blocks south of Little, on the east side of 5th St. The skatepark is always open, free. Protective gear is strongly advised. As of now, bikes are allowed but under review considering recent damage to the concrete. Winter closes in about mid-November and lets up around mid-April. There's beautiful camping nearby. Come and ride 5th St. Skatepark! - Paul Brabenec

This is Phase 1 completed. Although this park is fairly small, it's been designed and built by skaters, with good quality and a lot of flow.

The concrete slab with bowled corners is 3600 square feet in area, measuring 60 x 60 feet. The concrete is glassy smooth and the transitions are as good as any you'll find. The bowled corners have 2 1/4 inch round steel coping that's perfectly smooth and free of kinks, dents, or rough welds.

The wooden construction of the ramps will permit easy changes to the park's design. All ramps are 3/4 ply forms with 2x4 or 2x6 joists on 6 inch centers, covered with 3/4 inch plywood (or 2 layers of 3/8), and skinned with 1/4 hardboard (masonite). All flat ramps have curved transitions at the bottom, and all ramps have 1/8 inch steel plates at the concrete. Coping is 2 1/4 inch round steel. The central funbox and ramps are modular to allow repositioning into other configurations.

Phase 2 is a bowl to be built by the Dreamland Skatepark crew and scheduled for early summer '03! Meanwhile stop by and skate 5th Street!