The Lake Pleasant Pipes were built in 1976-77 about 30 minutes North of Phoenix. It was the first and largest project built by Ameron, where it all started. There were 2 huge pipelines built eventually, each one was over 3 miles long! The pipeline West of the freeway was under the Agua Fria River, the pipeline East of the freeway was under New River. The whole project took almost 2 years to complete.
We mostly rode the New River downhill, some skaters would just carve down at high speed, riding the downhill was so effortless it was scary sometimes. The sections were more work to ride because you had to fakie or kickturn to pump enough speed to get really high. Access was pretty easy, pipe sections could be seen from the highway on both sides. The pipes were built next to a popular desert party place for tubing and swimming called “the Flumes”, so there were always lots of spectators. Security was super cool, I do not ever remember being hassled out there, except for swimming in the canal. Life was SO good then, why do we have to grow up?
AZ Players: Slater, Cameron, Shelton, Mike Bragone, Todd Falcon, Steve Ford, John Holman, Tommy Hawks & the Litchfield crew, Jimi Howard & Morgan, Shelton, Larry Mead, Doug Edwards, the Ping bro’s and many others…
Film: I had only 1 roll of 110 film, but Ritz/ Kits Cameras lost them, luckily I had a few prints. Here are some pix I have collected of that project, BIG THANKS to Mike Slater, Steve Ford & John Holman for their contributions.
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