Payson Utah Skatepark - Possibly the Worst Skatepark in the World

I’m not giving any sort of directions to this monstrosity, because there’s no reason for you to visit it other than if you need an example of how not to build a skatepark. Seriously, it is that bad. It’s so bad that it’s even worse than the Provo skatepark. The photo above makes it look a lot better than it really is.

Ok, fine, here are directions: It’s at about 600 South and 100 East. Get off at the Payson, Main Street exit and just stay on Main Street into town (South). Go through that one-way part even though you want to turn to the right, and just keep on going straight. It’s in a park.

If you hired a construction company and told them “Here’s $100K and some open land. We’re not going to tell you what to build, just come up with something.” you would have ended up with something that would probably be more skateable than this. And I mean that you wouldn’t even tell the consruction company that they needed to build a skatepark. If they ended up building a used-car lot it would probably be better.

Why is the park so bad? Let’s start with the halfpipe…no, let’s save that for last because it’s the worst.

1. The ground. C’mon, how hard is it for anybody to lay a flat piece of concrete? I mean, I’d probably mess it up, but I assume the city hired somebody who does this for a living, right? The concrete has large cracks in it, holes, and part of it is coated with some sort of attempted waterproofing that doesn’t appear to be working well.

2. The pyramid. This thing looks like part of an air-conditioning unit that you would find on the top of a building, or possibly like a UFO designed by somebody in the 50s. At the bottom the metal “transitions” from the flat concrete to the steeper side, but it’s not a smooth transition, somebody just welded stuff at a less steep angle than the sides. So instead of having to deal with one harsh transition (which I think would be preferable) you have to deal with two. Plus the pyramid is just too steep. Yeah, Daewon could skate it, but it’s pretty crazy.

3. The rails. On one end there are three rails that go down a slightly curved, mellow bank. Several problems here. First, the rails are too long. I mean they are really, really long. Second, because of the curve in the bank they go really high off the ground. If you racked on these rails you’d then have to fall five feet to the ground. Third, the rails start too late. Just to get on them you’re basically ollieing a gap, so they’re gap to rails, not just rails. That’s all well and good for Leo Romero, but what are us normal folk supposed to do?

4. The bowl. What a joke. First of all, whoever put down the concrete didn’t do their prep work, so parts of the bowl settled and cracked big time. Second, it gets water in it and doesn’t drain. Third, it’s lumpy. Fourth, no coping, just big rounded edges that you can’t do tricks on.

5. The halfpipe. Ok, this is the best. It’s almost worth a trip just to see it, because you have never seen a halfpipe like this. It’s made of the same 1/2 inch steel plate everything else appears to be made of, the type of metal they used in the Soviet Union to build things during the cold war. There is only coping on one side of the ramp, and it’s about an inch in diameter. No, I’m not kidding. Super tiny coping.

Next, the transitions are anything but smooth. They start curving up and then there’s a harsh curve that takes you to what is essentially a slightly angled wall. So it’s more like a bank to wall than anything else, except the “bank” is only a foot high, and the wall is three feet high, and somehow you’re supposed to be able to do tricks on the top. They even have an extension. I dared Mark to drop in on it but he wouldn’t.

Oh, and did I mention that each sheet of steel is welded together to the next one with big lumpy lines of welding material? And did I mention the sheets aren’t even with each other to begin with?

The construction of the ramp makes it really noisy as well. I can’t imagine the people who live 40 feet away across the street are very happy. Luckily for them nobody can really ride that ramp so it probably doesn’t bother them too much.

What else can I say about this park? That it looks like it was built by someone in the Ukraine, circa 1984? That it may have been built by the local high school metal shop class? That the city of Payson obviously went with the lowest bidder?

I’m sure there are worse parks out there somewhere, but this is definitely the worst skatepark I’ve seen to date. What a waste of taxpayer funds.

The only bright lining here is that any kid that can skate that place is going to be one amazing skater who will be able to skate anything.