Pre-Thanksgiving Parking Garage Runs

An annual tradition in Portland amongst the local downhill skateboarders is to hit up the parking garages in downtown. Sessions occur randomly throughout the winter but the night before Thanksgiving is usually a good time as there are not a lot of people out the night before this Holiday. It's definitely setup by word of mouth to keep it on the DL and we have our usually spots, one of which we refer to as home-base. It's awesome to meet up with the local crew in the winter time, most of which you only see during the nicer part of the year at locations like Mt.Tabor on the Eastside and Switchbacks on the Westside. Here's some footage of riders mixing it up, pumping and tucking for speed, and having fun going down this 9 floor series of 180 right turns.

After a dozen or so runs the group started to head in small numbers over to another parking garage. This one is about 9 floors too and setup in a figure 8 route as you rode downhill. This allows for more ways to go down and a lot more action. Also the possibility of close calls and collisions as riders cross each others paths while going downhill, all making it even more fun! However after only a few runs the elevator, which was full, decided to break down and drop a few floors. Luckily no one was hurt from the fall but we did get stuck in the elevator for about 15 minutes. Some of the skaters started to get nervous and I could see some panicked faces while I was stuck inside waiting to see what was gonna happen. One skater said we should call 911 while another said hey I don't wanna miss my Thanksgiving meal tomorrow its at noon! Thankfully we were able to communicate with another group of riders outside the elevator. And between prying the inside door open with a skateboard and the outside group pushing open the outside doors, we were about to leap up and out. It was a crazy and unexpected experience. And definitely a night ending event for most of the riders, especially those of us stuck in there!

Some nervous faces as they start to realize the elevator is broken and we may be stuck a while.

Trying to pry open the inside door while communicating with an group of riders on the outside.