Arizona: Rio Vista Skatepark

The Phoenix area was an early adopter of the public skate park model and there are now more than 10 pro-quality parks scattered throughout its dusty sprawl. Every desert rat's got his favorite, but the Rio Vista park wins because of its generous size and variety of terrain. Beginners will enjoy the concrete tits (three-foot-high mounds, perfect for pumping over) while modern street dogs can dig into any number of euro-gaps, flat bars, stairs, handrails, hips and banks. There's a quarter pipe zone of mixed heights and harshness and an eight-foot-wide channel if you feel like going for broke. A triple bowl with metal coping is perfect for the mini-ramp set while a clover pool, complete with shallow-end stairs; concrete coping and fairly-forgiving transitions can satisfy any gnar-dog in training. For the last two Aprils the park has played host to Cowtown Skateshop's Phoenix Am event, which is fast becoming as popular and important as the Tampa Am. Another big plus of Peoria is how they've spaced out the different sections. Many parks designers make the mistake of having everything connected, which might look good on paper, but turns into a sketchy criss-cross-crash scenario once you have more than four people skating. Here the bowls and pool are separated from the rails and ledges, allowing each to be sessioned in a more relaxed way (no more running into the kids who are waiting in line for the flat bar; no more boards shooting into the bowl and taking people's head off). While some might get turned off by Peoria's spiked fence and soccer-mom vibe (complete with adjacent Starbucks) it's a no-worries spot, perfect for weekend-warrior types and dudes that only have a couple of hours after work. And since Phoenix is smack-dab in the middle of the Mojave desert where no humans are actually meant to live, you're going to want to avoid going there any time between the months of May and November unless you want your brains to melt out of your nose and cook on the sidewalk in front of you.

In short: A winter-time shred treasure