Ever heard of Blanding, Utah? If you’re from Utah, chances are you’re related to someone here. In my case, I married someone who is the daughter of someone from Blanding, so I get to visit every once in a while.
Well, there’s a new reason for visiting Blanding. They’ve got a new public park, and it’s not bad at all. In fact, I like it better than a lot of the parks up around SLC.
I don’t have the address, but it’s located south of town near the new baseball fields and the dinosaur museum. Kind of down by Alco. Trust me, once you get to Blanding that’s all you need to know, it’s not hard to find, even without directions. This place just isn’t that big.
As with all public skateparks, it’s got some huge bowls. Once again, I love big bowls, but they go mostly unused by kids so I don’t know why they have so many of them.
What I like about this bowl is that part of it is set up like a halfpipe with about the right about of flat. It’s probably about 10-foot with six inches to a foot of vert. So it’s not just a bowl, it’s a halfpipe as well. A little lumpy, but not too bad.
The street part has a lot of good basics. Flat flatbar, round flat bar, ledges, hubbas, stairs, banks, handrail down the stairs, short rail down a bank (you can also hit the flat extension after coming up the bank), step up, curved ledge, etc. And the banks as you’re coming up don’t have the rounded off corners so it’s easier to get some good pop. The step up could be a little larger, but it’s still fun.
The place is brand new, so it needs a little wax. The ledges all have metal edges that are pretty sticky right now, but that could be fixed in a few minutes.
Oh, and for those of you who still don’t know where Blanding is, it’s about 5-6 hours from SLC, and 5-6 hours from St. George, which puts it right in the middle of almost nowhere so if you live in either of those places chances are you aren’t going to travel here just for the park. But it is just an hour south of Moab and 20 minutes from Monticello, so if you’re visiting either of those places it’s worth the extra drive.
It’s true! The last place in the world I would think, somebody would put a nice skatepark is in Blanding Utah. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard they had built a park in Blanding. Anybody considering taking the extra long drive down to blanding might want to think about having some experience under their belt. The skatepark in Blanding being the new major attraction (besides the dinosaur museum) all of the kids seem to be pretty darn good!
I enjoy reading your park reviews!
Keep it up,
Jeremy
Does any one have photos of this park. I helped build it and had to leave the job during winter snow delays. I would love to see photos of the finished job.
Thanks
I don’t have any pictures of the skatepark but next time I go down there to visit my family I will be sure to get some for ya.
its the best sk8 park in san juan, if youre a biker and you want to air out the bowls this place is the place to be!
When i used to skate there, it was me and 2 other kids. i have never seen any real skaters there, it seems like a waste of money to me to put a park in that town, no one skates, and other than the occsional kid on a razor, in the year i skated it, i was just as desolate as the desert that surrounds it. the park itself is saveage, but blanding eats @$$.