In this live on‑camera walkthrough, Julian Christianson gives an informal, enthusiastic tour of the newly built Idaho Springs Skatepark near Denver. He opens with a brief description of the park’s location and the breezy mountain backdrop, then rates the park an 8‑9/10 for its size and variety of features. Julian systematically describes each element – a 4‑4.5 ft hip reminiscent of Denver’s hip, a solid A‑frame with round rail and cross‑hatch coping, a long flat‑bar box with a low central ledge, several small rails and “manny pads,” a 3‑step to 7‑step stair set, a square rail, and a modest bowl with a 5‑7 ft bank. He notes the smoothness of transitions, the thickness of rails, and the overall flow between obstacles. Personal safety concerns surface when he mentions a lingering ankle/nerve issue that limits his skating, and he points out two design quirks that could hinder advanced lines: a slappy curb near the hip that can catch a rider launching far out, and insufficient concrete extending past the A‑frame, which could affect learning front‑blunt‑kickflip outs. Julian also comments on environmental factors – wind blowing from the west that can affect stair approaches, and the scenic mountain views with hawks overhead. He concludes by encouraging viewers to visit the park, noting its suitability for kids and street‑style practice, and hints at future park reviews once his ankle feels better.
Chapters
Amazing views, mountains. Gets a little breezy up here, but right off the highway, very hard to miss it if you're headed towards Denver from the mountains from the west going east. If you're going east to west, you kind of just miss it. But dope skate park. They just built it last year. And I want to skate it right now, but kind of hurt my my ankle. I've been having this weird, uh, nerve that pinches. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it goes away, sometimes not. So today I figure I'd just do a little live video and tell you guys what I think of this skatepark. Honestly, I think it's probably— for the size, um, I'd probably give it like an 8 or 9 out of 10, just because They have a couple cool features. They got a flat bar, they got flat ledges. You can skate it like a manny pad. They got this unique long, uh, flat bar across the box, a couple out rails that are really small, so you can really learn something on it if you're a kid. My favorite part about this park though is this hip because it's just like Denver hip, similar to, uh— Uh, Don Anema Skatepark too. Let's turn this camera around. So I like the angle of it. It's not perfect 90 degrees. You can kind of launch it out a decent amount. It just, uh, is my type of hip. It's about, I want to say, 4 feet tall, 4.5 feet tall. Yeah. Which is just good. It's steep, but it's not probably as steep as Denver Skatepark, but it's a really cool hip. And then I think the only thing— only a couple issues I have with this park, and it's all just personal, but they put this curb here, and it's a cool slappy curb, but, you know, for me, I like to launch a hip really far out if I can. And I remember coming here on grand opening day, jumping pretty far out and almost rolling right into this. And sometimes if you're trying to skate this hip really far out or even this quarter pipe going fast or whatever, sometimes you could trip and then fall right towards this. So I think that's probably one of the only things about this park that, you know, I would change. Second thing I would probably change is just adding a little bit more concrete on this side of the A-frame. Yeah. Just because if you're learning a new trick, for any kid coming up that maybe is going to start competing in any kind of street contest, there's a lot of A-frames. And if they are learning, say, like a front blunt kickflip out, it's going to be hard to learn it here just because the concrete doesn't end, or it ends a little early. It doesn't extend a little bit farther. So if they came back, filled this in all the way to the edge of that over there, that, uh, mountain little wall, which is kind of cool. I think that'd be cool. But other than that, sick. It's nice A-frame, good thickness round rail. The, the steepness of this bank isn't too steep, like it matches like the height of the rail and the mellowness of the rail. So all in all, it's a pretty good A-frame. I really like how they did the crosshatch on the, uh, the coping. I forget what they call it, diamond cut or something like that. But if you look close, it's got it all the way along, which it just makes a really cool zzz sound like a zipper. And then if we come over here to this box, I haven't really seen a box like this out here in Denver. A nice long flat ledge. You can also skate it like a manny pad. You can even wallie up it on each side. I would say this bar in the middle is also really great, especially for kids because it's low. But with a ramp, they maybe could have made it slightly taller. But again, good thickness. It's the same thickness round rail all around the park. Uh. Really fun just to skate in general. I like how they made it this long and this wide because it kind of will help you learn how to hold your grinds. And yeah, just all in all, it's pretty dope obstacle. And then there's a good amount of space in between. You can roll in, throw down, and then roll into a bank. That's a good I would say height and steepness with the transition at the bottom. It's really smooth. And then you come out pretty much enough, enough landing and runway on each side of it, which is always great. Then we got another little manny pad over here. You can also skate like ledge to manny, which I love doing grind to manny combos. You can even— Yeah. Manual all the way from up top over here. And it's cool they kept, you know, the, the metal up at the very top of it, even though maybe people aren't going to grind it from the top all the way down off the stair. But you never know. This— I'm about 6 foot tall and this, this is just above my knee. So a little different, a little different. It's cool for young kids growing up. You always want to start learning something on a small gap and then take it to a bigger gap. So I really like how they have— you can go from the 3-stair, kind of like a little mini 2-block, and then 7-stair. And the stairs are decent size. We got a square rail, but it's not too thick. These grind and slide pretty good. So no complaints there. It's pretty low. It's just above the knee at the very top. But by the time you get on, you probably learn flip tricks onto this at like 12 years old. If, if you're really, you know, getting up to that level, like for a contest, this is definitely a good size rail that if you could do it on this, you could do it on any rail at a contest usually. Yeah. Unless it ends up being one of those bigger Street League, World Skate, you never know, it depends on where they have the contest, right? But I would say also with the direction of they face this park, it seems like the wind blows in from the west. So if you're skating down the stairs, you're kind of jumping into the wind. So you might have to come on a good day or just wait in between. You know, wind gusts. But it's a good size. Like, really like the way they finished the ground here. It's not the smoothest, but still good. Probably won't slide on it very, very much, but I think they did a pretty good job. It doesn't seem like there's a lot of imperfections. Got drains. Um, All in all though, really cool park. We got this little— I don't even know what kind of wall you would call it. Not really a vert wall, but a little bank with mountain peaks. Someone's up here putting DPL on there. Denver Park. Shout out to Denver Park skaters. Go to the skate park and actually skate it, guys. Don't just go there and try to make it your party scene. Yeah. Pretty cool little bowl too. I'm not much of a tranny skater, but fun. Definitely like carving around this when I'm warming up. Kind of blast over that corner right there, the little— I don't know what you would call it, a hip? But this side is about 5 feet tall. If I go down here, it's just under my shoulders. So it's pretty cool. You can skate it kind of like a mini ramp going back and forth this way. And the deep side is about 6 feet, 7 feet. I'm not going to say it, but you already know because of those two numbers going back to back. 7 feet. I saw Rafael up here, Sambo, and he was jumping off this way, which I didn't get to skate it on grand opening day. I kind of had a tailbone bruise. But this is also a cool gap. So you can go from the 7 stair to then go to something like slightly longer. It almost seems about the same length, maybe like I stay here longer. But yeah, it's a dope, dope park. Got the views, you could watch some hawks flying around and kick it. So definitely come check it out and stay tuned. Maybe I'll do some more reviews of some other parks, and hopefully my ankle's feeling good next time so I can actually skate it. All right, you guys have a good day. Peace.
