Hidden in the Suburbs:  Harada Skate Park

There’s a skate park that sits in the middle of a square mile of semi-new tract homes in Corona, California called Harada Skate Park, This park is way cool, with quality, smooth concrete and a great design. It has a half pipe, about 4 ½ feet deep but fun as hell, that curves around a killer keyhole pool. This perfectly round keyhole bowl is small but deep--about 9 feet with a drop-in channel that’s steep and a bit wide for jumping across, but possible. You don’t want to fall off in this bowl because it’s hard to climb out of. This keyhole has a good transition; almost vert.

There’s a real nice egg bowl with a nice transition that’s about 6 ½ feet deep made for big fun. Great for long board carving and tricks for all size decks with good tranny (not vert). I’ve never seen an egg bowl like this in a park before.  It’s a true egg, like an L.A. back yard pool I skated once. This true egg has a million lines but is also easy to get lost in. You just have to ride it to know what I mean.

The half-pipe/snake run empties out into a double bowl set-up with the gnarliest 10ft spin I’ve ever seen that divides two other bowls. This half pipe is smooth, fast and great for lip tricks. One bowl is a basic half capsule shape with two walls about 10 feet and one wall about 5 ½ feet (very ride able). The other bowl also has two walls about 10 feet high and one that’s about 6 feet, but this bowl has an odd shape with a few transition changes that make it way fun to ride. I’ve been to this park five times now and there have never been more than a handful of kids there. Twice, I skated it with just my skate bro, Mike Early, all by ourselves the whole time. I don’t know if it’s always dead but it’s the most uncrowded park I’ve ridden. It’s kind of like a secret spot of ours. The half pipe and its connecting bowl flow together well and are ride able all in one run.

There are some local BMXers that mostly ride the half pipe and one bowl but they don’t seem like most BMXers and choose to keep to themselves, not getting in skaters’ way. There is one mistake in this park and that’s a Kidney Pool. That looks like it was nice before they tried to change the tile and coping screwing it up badly. Now it’s not ride able. All the bowls and half pipe in this park have metal coping.

This park is also surrounded by large picnic grounds with manicured grass and shaded well-maintained picnic bench areas circled by bike paths. The whole area around the park is upper middle class and very quiet.  I dig this park a lot and give it an 8 on a 10 scale because of its good surrounding vibe, vacancy and overall fun factor. (Great for longboarding!). This park is free and has lights for night skating.