SKATE AND EXPLORE - HAMILTON, CANADA
Hamilton: a place that needs no introduction, because everything we heard before going there was wrong – turns out the place is actually really rad! We sent Alex Hannigan, Steven Vera & Liam Mckenzie to Skate & Explore the city. By all reports it was only a good time, filled with rad spots and epic people.
Photos by Jacob Lambert
Video
Skate and Explore: Hamilton
The Skaters
People ask us why we are always sending our skaters out to unheard of zones, tiny towns and forgotten cities, not known skate havens. Typically these are places we’ve got next to no insight in, other than what we can pilfer from gmaps.
For many, Hamilton, Ontario is one of those places and when asked Alex Hannigan, Steven Vera and Liam McKenzie to get out there, we realised they were destined for the deep end. But, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be exploration without the unknown.
The Skate and Explore Hamilton Plan
In true Landyachtz fashion the plan for Skate and Explore Hamilton was simply to skate around in search for stoke-inducing features and zones. The where, when, what etc were all secondary considerations to the overriding goal of having an epic time. The fact of the matter is every town, city or otherwise is ideal to skate and explore, the very nature of urban architecture almost demands that these environments are enjoyed by skateboards.
For many, Hamilton, Ontario is one of those places and when asked Alex Hannigan, Steven Vera and Liam McKenzie to get out there, we realised they were destined for the deep end. But, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t be exploration without the unknown.
While skating to what we figured would make a nice little morning jammer the calm was broken by Vera blowing up over a huge dilapidated building. Being the Urbex master that he is we obviously had to sample.
The doors were open and the building was squatter free, making it a breeze to gain rooftop access, icing on the crumbling ruins cake.
On the world’s third largest patch of concrete it was kinda surprising that they managed to run into each other. I guess these stars really do have their own gravitational pull and when such high levels of radness collide the only assured outcome is an explosion of stoke.
We surfed between the grass and avoided the gaping cracks and blinding sun. All I can say is the kids that lived across the street are lucky.
