When did your fascination with pools start?

Growing up in Winnepeg, you don’t get any in-ground pools with transitions, other than the odd bank to wall or tight transitions. When you come to California, you always end up riding pools at some point. When I first started coming to California in 2000, I rode them a bit but I wasn’t too into it; it was just something to do. After I had surgery in March of last year I would just ride around in my neighborhood I found a public pool that had shut down. I was just carving around; I was more psyched on that than going to the skatepark. I go once a week and rip around it. I figured I needed to find more of them. I found a cluster of pools in an abandoned block near my house.

You usually have to do some prep work?

Yeah, unless you’re riding one that’s pretty known, you might have to do some bucketing or sweeping. I pick and choose; I don’t bucket them all.

You’ve had good success in discovering them in your area?

Yeah, all over. Rooftop (Mike Escamilla) is always down for the adventure. Usually when you find one, there’s another one neaby. There’s a whole neighborhood where the hillside burned down in 2008. There’s a bunch of empty lots with pools. We hit at least a dozen in a day. No house, no fence to jump, no “No Tresspassing” signs.

How are the Rooftop misisons?

He’s down for anything, just for the fun of it. They are the funnest. He’s got the 4X4; if we can go somewhere, we’re gonna go.

Is it true that you post pics of pools that have water in them and go ride other ones?

I’ve done that. I take photos of every pool. I just like looking at them, even with the water or debris. I think that looks cooler than when it’s empty. Maybe we’ll clean it out and ride it, and not shoot a riding photo. I mean how many photos of carves can you post ?

Have you gone to other states for pools?

Not on specific pool missions. I want to go to Las Vegas. I know there are some real good ones there. Same with Arizona.

What area that you’ve been to has the highest abundance of pools?

The Inland Empire has so many. There are huge neighborhoods, and there are every geographical element that is conducive for empty pools.

There seems to be a pool community on Instagram these days.

I started posting pools, and found the hashtag #emptypools. I thought I had some cool ones and was like, “Damn, these guys are at it.” That whole subculture is pretty cool. Not that it ever went away, but there seems to be a sort of revival. People are active and trying to find them. Everyone wants to ride them and no one wants to do the work. It’s like trails. When there’s knee-deep water, no one is around.

What company makes the best pools?

The Blue Haven is the Holy Grail. They are just consistently better transitions than all the others.