Quick Hit: Emile Laurent vs Burnside's Pale Cliff

Ahead of his big interview out 1/18, we asked Oregon's own George Phillips - the skater behind the Four Down insta - about the drop, the spot, and the Thrasher cover bounty.

George ripping it up under the bridge in Burnside. Pillar rock, 270-revert out with Justin Shreeve behind the lens

Here is the beauty of the drop-in: it depends far more on commitment than skill.

One of the first great challenges all skaters must stare down, dropping in can be horrifying enough on stuff designed for it; go check out your local vert ramp – like a real vert ramp – if you want your sternum kicked, a rabbit in your ribcage. But to drop-in on the accidental angles out there in the wild, that is truly a different beast.

It takes a beast to slay one, and luckily, Emile Laurent had both the moxie and the monster. His ridiculous run down the white cliff of Burnside (fucking two times, no less) is already the stuff of myth. And who better to offer some insight than George Phillips? An Oregon native and the skater behind Four Down, George has seen about as many crazy street drop-ins as anyone. So we asked him about the wall, the geography, and most important of all, the legend of Jake Phelps’ cover bounty.

Emile opens Polar’s latest vid by dropping the damn hammer

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4ts: Is [the drop-in] bonkers? Is that thing pretty crazy?

George: Yeah, it’s absolutely insane. That was Emile, he grew up skating here in Portland. That wall is right by the Burnside skatepark, and it’s a fun wallride spot. It’s kinda crusty, like it’s old shitty asphalt, but that white wall is fun to do wallrides on. But it’s, like, 20ft tall — it’s not small.

If you think about the banked wall at Burnside, it’s like the continuation of that. It keeps going outside the park. It’s basically like that bank wall.

4ts: Oh, that’s what that is?

George: I think so.

4ts: Oh, interesting. I’ve never been to Burnside. I’ve seen it on film, but not like someone walking in and showing you what it looks like, y’know what I mean?

George: Yeah. So, the Burnside skatepark, there’s that big bank wall, and then there used to be a parking lot right next to it. And they tore that parking lot out and just put a massive apartment building there – which is why Burnside’s so dark now. Past that apartment building, like right on the other side of it, is where that big bank is that he dropped in on.

4ts: Interesting.

George: And it’s not quite vertical, but it’s pretty close. The legend is that Phelps said if you drop in on this, you get the cover of the magazine.

4ts: That’s what I was gonna ask!, if you knew if the legend was true or not. The cover bounty.

George: I don’t know if it’s true or not; he didn’t get the cover, at least not yet. He did have a cover though. He did a rock to fakie at Burnside on the ‘guard railing’ up by the crow’s nest, and it’s like … that would be a 20ft drop into the street if you fucked that up.

4ts: There was a comment under that Polar video where someone on YouTube [editor’s note: @YohtaroShimozawa] was like ‘he skates like he can respawn,’ and I was like ‘that’s it. That’s it right there, you nailed it.’

George: 100%

4ts: Let’s just assume the bounty was true, because why let the truth get in the way of a good story, right? There should be myth in skateboarding, in my opinion. I want a little mystery.

George: Yeah, definitely. That like lore … that kind of stuff is so fun.

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Much more from George tomorrow! And make sure to subscribe for a special bonus post.