Like communities across the state, Central Oregon’s towns boast their fair share of public skateparks. Bend, Sisters, Warm Springs, Redmond, Madras and Prineville are all home to concrete skateparks.

In Bend alone, you could make a full day out of skating its parks. There are three full-fledged skateparks, two smaller spots, including a skate “dot” and for those seeking a nice leg workout with some cardio, an asphalt pump track.

Bend’s skateparks are up and down the east side of town.

Ponderosa Park, 225 SE 15th St., is home to two of the bigger ones in Bend. The original Ponderosa Skatepark, at the north end, was built in 1997 and has seen better days, but there have also been some upgrades with another possible one on the way. It’s younger, more popular sibling at the south end of the park (Wilson Avenue entrance) is more of a street-oriented park with banks, stairs, rails, a ledge, a Euro gap, but also some transition in the form of quarter pipes and a mini ramp.

But if you’re more of a transition than street skater, it’s Rockridge Skatepark, completed in fall 2016, that you’ll want to hit: Essentially one gigantic bowl with many corners, pump bumps and transfer possibilities, Rockridge can be difficult to negotiate when full of youngsters on scooters, but for flow and lengthy runs that border on cardio workouts, it’s a don’t-miss skatepark. The park is also home to a nine-hole disc golf course and paved and unpaved paths for the non-skaters in your group.

Should you find Rockridge on the crowded side, Bend’s newest skatepark, Northpointe, is less than 2 miles away. Completed in 2022, the small park is tucked back in a neighborhood north of Cooley Road, making it Bend’s northernmost skatepark. It’s essentially made up of several small features built on a round concrete slab, but it boasts a rail, ledge, quarter pipe and volcano nestled between a basketball court and an elaborate play structure.

Speaking of cardio: Big Sky Park, also in northeast Bend, is home to the recently finished Big Sky Bike Park, which has a sizable pump track, always fun for a speed fix and practicing your carves around corners. There’s also plenty to keep BMXers and mountain bikers in your crew happy with adjacent singletrack, a skills course and more.

Finally, our brief tour around Bend wraps up at the small but serviceable rails and box at Stone Creek Park, 61531 SE Stone Creek Lane.

Beyond Bend

While that’s it for Bend proper, if driving is an option and you’re looking to explore farther afield, Warm Springs Skatepark is the newest addition to the Central Oregon skatepark roster. Located in the town of the same name at the south end of the Warm Springs Reservation, the skatepark was completed in spring of this year and features concrete quarter pipes, a jersey barrier, a skateable corner with stairs and this scribe’s favorite feature a bank with a curb affixed to the top. If you go, just do yourself a favor and don’t try to drop in from the top of the blue box adorning one of the smaller quarter pipes.

Warm Springs is only 16 miles from Madras Bike and Skate Park, which is home to three bowls of depths, ranging from mini to vertical, a street course, spine and more. Despite being 20 years old, Madras has been well-maintained, and its design does not yet seem dated. Another thing working in its favor is the fact that it’s the only of the area’s skateparks with lights that make after-dark skating a possibility.

If you want to explore more, don’t sleep on Prineville, Sisters or Redmond skateparks, all of which have solid flow and are more than worthy of a stop. Built in 2001, Redmond is the oldest of these three, but it’s also the only park around here with a snake run. Prineville offers an incredible wide-open flow area that will entertain for hours, a great full-size bowl and a sort of hybrid ditch and mini bowl.

Saving perhaps the best for last, don’t sleep on Sisters Skatepark, the crown jewel of skateparks in Central Oregon. The park was designed by longtime Central Oregon skater Daniel O’Neill in conjunction with the Sisters Park & Recreation District, with much of the construction done by locals and volunteers. Home to a flow bowl with cradle, a pool with a loveseat and stairs, and a competition-worthy bowl, Sisters has long been a draw for pros and skaters traveling through Central Oregon for the past decade. With recent additions including a doorway you can skate over, a mini capsule bowl and a tall vert quarter pipe, it will probably maintain its high-ranking rep for the foreseeable future. You won’t find any metal coping here, either.

And, if you’re planning ahead for 2024, Culver, southwest of Madras, is slated to begin construction on a 6,000-square-foot skatepark in the spring.