While we’ve been very quiet on social media and the web site here, the Park Working Group has been busy over winter! Today it is lazily snowing outside as I write this. The Park Working Group has been keeping regular monthly meetings with Missoula County PTOL all winter, and we’re all excited for Spring and Summer! Starting a recreation program from scratch isn’t easy. While this year we only have the Skatepark itself we want to get the wheels rolling, both figuratively and literally.

Thanks to Adobe After Effects template projects, and very amateur skills, we’ve got a short time-lapse video to show everyone. Also…I guess we’re kind-of on YouTube now…So, that’s a thing…

The hydroseeding contractors finished spraying down the grass+mulch mix on Friday the 10th! We’re asking everyone to please stay off of the green hydroseeded areas all around the skatepark surfaces. Thus far it looks like everyone is being really awesome about staying off the hydroseed, and we GREATLY appreciate that! I know I promised a new big aerial orthophoto in one of the previous updates, but, as is the way with technology, something went pretty wrong.

tl;dr; We’re not done yet! More things are planned and, with continuing support, built in the 2024 construction season! The Skate Park officially opened for the public on October 21st, 2023. We had one VERY perfect weekend right after that, and now fall/first winter is settling in. It’s been freezing rain today as I’m writing this very update! The Skate Park has been our focus as we begin the process of turning what was a disused baseball field into a community asset.

We’re all EXTREMELY excited to announce that our skate park is OPENING to the public on Saturday, October 21st! Some of the Skate Park Working Group members will be there during the day, as well as Girls on Shred We’ll get some pictures of the finished hard surfaces Very Soon(tm)!

Beginning at the end of last week, and continuing into this week the hard working Evergreen crew has been shooting concrete. All hands on deck! CONCRETE’S HERE! Once the mud starts flowing, it’s all hands on the pour. Concrete is dirty, it’s heavy, and it’s messy. And it isn’t going to wait for anyone or anything. Once that truck gets loaded at the batch plant, that concrete has a clock. Tick-tock.

The on-site crew at Evergreen have been really great to work with. They’ve been making huge progress every single day they’re out at the site, and have provided us with a couple of pictures they’ve taken with a drone last week. I’ve also been out to do more shots with my drone, and will have an updated orthophoto very soon! These two pictures were taken only a few days ago by Evergreen’s crew.

We told you Evergreen would be busy this week with some of the most visible major changes, and they certainly were! Just like most other concrete projects, fill has to be brought in that can be compacted in order to provide a solid base to pour, or in this case, shoot, the concrete onto. Shotcrete will be used in this project, as it allows you to get concrete into shapes that are otherwise difficult or impossible purely with traditional forms.

The crew from Evergreen Skateparks is here! They’re full speed ahead on the project now. I took these pictures this afternoon and you can already start to see the footprint. Like we said earlier, things are going to change FAST now. They’ve got a number of crew members already on site with two pieces of equipment working on removing the grass (grubbing). With the site now an active construction site we kindly ask that everyone stay well away from the crew and the site in the field.

Evergreen Skateparks has shared a couple of 3D renders with us of what the hard surfaces should look like when they’re done! These renders are based off of the design documents and will closely reflect what will actually be built! Obviously there could be changes as Evergreen goes through the construction process, however, if such changes occur, they should be minor. There’s three different ‘drop in’ depths, including the bowl feature which is the lowest elevation for all of the hardscape.

The hard surfaces are completely funded! This includes all of the earthworks, drainage, constuction materials, machinery, concrete, and man hours to build the actual hard surfaces of the skate park! WE COULD NOT HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT OUR GENEROUS DONORS FROM THE COMMUNITY AND LOCAL BUSINESSES!

CSS Contracting (Chris) was out this past weekend and installed the drainage sump. On his own dime he had the donated sump transported it to the site and installed it. It doesn’t look like much now that it’s in, but, that is also the point! This sump, donated by Montana Precast Concrete, will collect runoff from the hard surfaces of the skate park, providing a place for the water to go rather than sitting in and on the concrete features causing damage.

We’re planning to do these throughout the skate park construction! This isn’t from Google’s satellite view, this was assembled from about 150 images taken from a drone flying about 100ft up.