It is a sport, a trend and a style that refuses to die in the Roaring
Fork Valley — a spark that was ignited more than a decade ago that has
burned unflaggingly from Glenwood to Aspen, touching every town in
between.

They descend upon concrete parks, waxed features on side alleys, hidden
rails and halfpipes. Their style is constantly in flux, changing with
the years — jeans, cargo pants, worn baggy, tight, ripped, or anything
in between.

Their equipment, however, is unchanging and inconceivably simple — a
wooden deck, aluminum trucks and four wheels. There are no hydraulic
shocks, or innovative engineering, or customized gimmicks.

These athletes, of course, are referred to as skaters or, rather,
skateboarders, and they are part of a constant evolution of their sport
— a sport that began as a subculture, understood by many as “dangerous”
or “subversive” or “incendiary.” They didn’t dress like the herd. They
didn’t talk like the masses. They didn’t act like the good ol’ boys on
the baseball field.

But without fail, this culture and sport managed to reach the most
unlikely of locations — the snow-buried, Gucci-clad outpost of Aspen.

And whether you love it or hate it, the verdict is in: Skating isn’t going anywhere in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The Roots

One person that remembers the roots of skating in Aspen better than
most is Othello, who played a pivotal role in bringing the sport to the
Roaring Fork Valley. Othello still recalls his first memories of trying
to find a space to skate in the valley.

“It was about 11 years ago,” he said. “There were no skateparks around
so we used to have to travel down to a place called the Tree House in
El Jebel. At that time, there weren’t too many options, and we were
still figuring out where to skate.”

Though there may only have been a handful of skaters at the time, the trend caught on quick.

“It was so fresh and new,” said Othello, “and people were pretty hyped
that I was trying to spread the sport. It was just a matter of teaching
a few people before it really started to catch on.”

Toward the late 1990s, as the number of skaters began to increase, the community reacted, not oppressively, but supportively.

“You have to remember, Aspen always wants to the have biggest and best
facilities for their athletes,” said Othello. “So when skating came
onto the scene, Aspen pulled together the resources for the park.”

The idea of building a park, however, can be a complicated subject.

On one hand, a park can be interpreted as the means of helping the
skating community. But, on the other hand, a park can also be used as
the means of containing the skating community into one small place,
therefore removing their presence from the streets. This dilemma also
relates to the image of skating itself. For example, a city like Aspen
would only want to eliminate skateboarding if they felt is was a
harmful culture or activity.

On this issue, Othello is convinced that the park was used primarily as a means to further the sport.

“The idea of a park is to showcase talent and provide a platform for
the sport,” he said. “Also, skaters in Aspen never had a bad image. In
terms of style, they always wore the hottest clothes. Locals had to buy
their gear at places like Polar or D&E, which meant they would be
wearing clothes that would look good in the park, on the mountain or
for others sports. It wasn’t just for skating.”

The Expansion

Abe Moreno, 26, of Basalt, is similar to Othello in that he knows the
skating scene as well as anyone in the valley. Moreno works at Casual
Culture, a skate shop in Carbondale, teaches skateboarding locally and
competes in competitions all around the state.

More than any other influence, Moreno pointed directly to the 2005
“King of the Road” competition in Carbondale sponsored by Thrasher
magazine as an event that really lifted skating to the next level in
the region.

“The whole event brought a lot of attention to skating in the valley,”
Moreno said. “Some of the best pros were in town and I really think
that it got a lot of young kids interested in the sport.”

Many of these young kids are now students of Moreno.

“I am starting to teach kids as young as 5 years old,” he said. “Every
year there seems to be more and more people interested in learning how
to skate.”

Yet amid this constant evolution of the skating world, Moreno claims
that there is only one aspect of skating that has actually changed.

“The boards don’t really change,” he said, “but style is always changing.”

Style, in this case, refers both to the fashion and to the development
of tricks in skating. For example, both Othello and Moreno talked about
the popularity of skating bowls within the parks, which is a feature
that is currently being developed and constructed in Snowmass.

Slated for a Sept. 1 opening, the town of Snowmass is currently
developing a 10,000-square-foot skatepark that is being built adjacent
to the rodeo lot. Replacing an older skate park that was destroyed
years back in order to build the current Snowmass Recreation Facility,
the new park was given a budget of $300,000 in the hopes of making
something special.

“We wanted to give the park back to the community,” said Andy Worline,
who has been the director of the Snowmass recreation department for
over two years. “We also did a lot of research in terms of finding out
exactly what kind of a park the community wanted.”

The new park, according to Worline, will be ideal for both beginners
and experts, incorporating a diverse array of features into the design.

The development of the Snowmass skatepark is significant for two
reasons. First, it shows that the community is willing to shell out a
substantial amount of money for the project that could have been used
for other purposes. Second, that even within the smaller community of
Snowmass, there is a continuous demand for more skating facilities.

“Not only will the park serve the community,” said Worline, “but we
also expect it to draw in a crowd from outside of Snowmass as well.”

With new skate shops opening up around the valley, a new park under way
in Snowmass and a strong contingency of veterans and novices dedicating
themselves to the sport, it appears that the world of skating will only
grow. The only question is, how fast?

bastian@aspendailynews.com [1]