The Lost Pipeline

We knew it had to be out there somewhere. After Skateboarder Magazine published pictures of the awesome Desert Pipes and the legendary Mt. Baldy Pipeline, we knew the place we lived also had all the geographic elements necessary for a big pipeline. The most obvious area for it was Cajon Pass, because of mountainous terrain, the heavy drainage of Lytle Creek, and the presence of railroads and freeways that would to be kept from being washed away. I remember checking out a couple of places under Interstate 15, but we never found anything except square drainage pipes. No good for skating.

Then one of our friends, Ron Cestari I think, told us that he heard from somebody about a huge pipe near Lone Pine Canyon, just off the ruins of the old Route 66, which was still there in the shadow of the Interstate.

The Lost Pipeline wasn't hard to find once we knew where to look. It was a crazy skate spot: about 60 yards long, running on a slight downhill angle under the tracks of the Union Pacific railroad. If you took a run down the length of it you would be flying through pitch darkness by the time you were half-way down the pipe. It had cement 3/4 of the way around it, but it was lumpy in a lot of places, so you had to look for a sweet spot and work it.

Pipes are really intense to skate because they are really fast and the vertical turns to over-vertical in an instant. After skating the Lost Pipeline, I felt like I had a taste of the rush surfers must experience at the famed Banzai Pipeline break on Oahu's North Shore.

The Lost Pipeline was one of those weird places that felt haunted all the time. The uphill side opened up in the desert. The other end opened up on a tributary of Lytle Creek where Mexican immigrants picnic and swim on the weekends and really felt like it was "down below," which is what we called everything in the Los Angeles basin, on the other side of the mountains from where we lived.

I always wanted to skate it more, but it wasn't the kind of place you wanted to go by yourself. It felt like many battles had taken place there and the pipeline had won them all.

Above: Me doing a fakie at the Lost Pipeline, circa 1979-1980.