Mike Fox Skate Park aka Ken Wormhoudt Skate Park — Attraction in Santa Cruz

Before his passing in 1997, Ken Wormhoudt was the world’s premier skate park architect and continues to be well recognized as the pioneer of skate park planning. His approach, which his son, Zach Wormhoudt follows to this day, is to involve local skaters in designing their own park, with the architect providing a realistic sense of options and helping the skaters to select and arrange the features which meet their needs. Ken would provide the skaters with modeling clay and have them work together to design their own ideal park.

Ken Wormhoudt designed and oversaw the construction of what is generally considered to be the first skate park in the world at Derby Park in Santa Cruz. After completing Derby Park, Ken, initially on his own and later with his son Zach Wormhoudt, went on to design and construct over 80 municipal skate parks and provided skate park facility planning and design consulting for over 460 skate parks in municipalities around the world. Ken and the firm he created with Zach Wormhoudt have won numerous awards for excellence from the Skate Park Association, U.S.A., the California and Nevada Parks and Recreation Societies, the American Public Works Association, and other professional and civic organizations.

Ken Wormhoudt was a skate park pioneer who earned a place in skate park history and made invaluable contributions to the local community. The naming of the new skate park in his honor is a tribute to his life, his family and many friends, and...

This is a great park. At first, I had some issues with the design (i.e. kind of oddly-shaped corners here and there), but after a few days riding it, I'm starting to get it. It's really, really cool. The transition stuff kills. All levels will be challenged. And the street course and mini bowl is cool too. The culture is very Santa Cruz--the first two days I was there I couldn't get into the pool because it was overtaken by about 8 teenagers and a 3 foot tall bong. It seems to be an after-school activity for the locals. Lots of skilled shredders and everyone I...

Not a easy place to ride, some tricky transitions, but is all part of it. Big bowl and some amazing speed tracks. The barrel surf shape makes you dream a little more about surfing and skate and feed your imagination.

I'm not a local, but was all good, the street skate part was pretty crowded, but it was ok, wait for your turn and be respectful to be well accepted everywhere, if you are cool and shred is a plus to...