BMX/Skate Spots: The History of the Nude Bowl
The mysterious empty swimming pool, out in the middle of the Southern California desert, that has been a legendary skateboard and BMX spot for over 40 years
Longtime pro BMX vert rider, Brian Blyther, airing out of the Nude Bowl, on a hot day in the spring of 1990. Video still from my first self-produced BMX video, The Ultimate Weekend, at 26:54.
The Nude Bowl
Every trip I’ve made out to the Nude Bowl felt like a day inside some post-apocalyptic movie. It’s a place that just shouldn’t exist, but somehow does. I’ve only been there 5 or 6 times, from 1989 to about 1992. The first couple trips I went with skateboarders, as a cameraman for Vision Skateboard’s video company, Unreel Productions. Once I knew where it was, I went out there to session with other BMXers three or four more times.
If you have no idea what the Nude Bowl is, here’s a good first video to see what it’s about, from Powell-Peralta, to the sounds of Agent Orange. Great skateboard pool sessions and related shenanigans since 1982.
The Nude Bowl is an empty swimming pool, high on a hill, more than a mile off the highway, in the middle of the SoCal desert. It is, literally, in the middle of fucking nowhere. Heading east from the L.A. area on the 10 freeway (U.S. I-10), it’s past Palm Springs, but before Desert Hot Springs. That’s all the directions I’m going to give you.
In 1990, I shot video footage there for a BMX freestyle video I self-produced, called The Ultimate Weekend (at 26:54). I went out there with Keith Treanor, John Povah, and Mike Sarrail. I called up BMX vert legend Brian Blyther, and asked him if he was willing to come out for that session and ride, as well. He not only drove out there, he brought former Pipeline Skatepark local, Xavier Mendez. That was great, big thanks to Brian and Xavier for coming out that day. Despite a temperature of somewhere around 105 degrees (F) that afternoon, we had a good session, and I became the first guy to put the Nude Bowl in a BMX video. I used the song “Pool Party,” by Ohio punk rock band The Stain, for the section, a song about skateboarding in pools. Brian Blyther is the rider getting the most air. I’m the guy carving a lot, in the white Vision Street Wear shirt, with short hair. I’m glad I was able to capture what the Nude Bowl looked like then, in the first years of BMX riders going out there, when the walls of the upper building were still standing. Thirty four years after that session, I’m still learning about the history of this weird, empty pool, and small compound, on a hill, in the middle of the desert.
Someone built this compound, with a 9 foot deep, left hand, kidney-shaped swimming pool, sometime in the 1930’s or 1940’s, according to some sources. One online story said a mobster, possibly Al Campone, first built it as a hideout, back in the 1930’s. I’m not sure anyone knows its true origin, at this point. But in 1963, two couples into nudism bought it, and opened Desert Garden Ranch resort.
They ran it as a small nudist resort, from 1963 until the late 1970’s. So for nearly two decades, it was a hangout for nekkid people, with an amazing view (pun intended). If you search through the online articles about it, you can find photos of nudists at the resort in the 1970’s. One online post includes a nudist magazine article about it, with photos. Yep, back in the hairy days, way before mandatory pube shaving became a thing. Anyhow, the resort was a drain on the finances of the Desert Garden Ranch owners, and they shut down and abandoned the place in the late 1970’s.
In 1982, a local with a 4 wheel drive vehicle, named Ray, found it again, and the pool had been filled with junk, including a washer, a dryer, a junk motorcycle, and big pieces of palm trees. The pool had also been used for target practice, so there were bullet holes in it. Ray had a skateboarder friend named Kevin, and told him about the pool in the middle of the desert.
Kevin, and a handful of skaters, decided to clean it out and skate it. Pro skater Eddie Elguera came into the mix somehow. It took a lot of work, over a couple of weeks, but they finally got it cleaned out. Eddie Elguera took the first run in the Nude Bowl’s history as a skate spot, in 1982. It became a secret spot for pool skaters for the next few years, with word slowly spreading to other hardcore pool skaters. Eddie Elguera quietly told Steve Alba, already a top pool skater, about it. But Eddie didn’t tell Steve exactly where it was.
Steve Alba, aka Salba, eventually found it, and the Nude Bowl was featured in his section in the 1987, Santa Cruz, Wheels on Fire skate video (which featured Eddie Elguera). That showed the Nude Bowl to the larger skateboard world for the first time.
Even then, directions to find this crazy place in the desert were given out only to serious pool skaters, plus the desert locals who knew about it. Lucky for me, we had several serious pool skaters working at Vision when I worked there, like Gator, Marty ‘Jinx” Jiminez, Vision woodshop workers (later Screamin’ Squeegees founders) Chicken and Chuck Hults, as well as Brad Bowman and Mike Folmer. None of those guys were friends that I hung out with or anything, but in early 1989 I became Unreel Productions’ cameraman for the small shoots, so I knew them just enough that I found out where the cool pools and spots were, for a while. That first trip to the Nude Bowl, I was taken there as the “video guy,” to shoot footage of skaters. I didn’t have my bike, which was a real bummer. My second trip, I took my bike, and even though most old pool skaters were still pretty anti-BMX at that time, I just carved lines, and didn’t chip the coping, so they put up with me riding a bit.
Before that, Pipeline Skatepark, the last of the 1970’s era skateparks in Southern California, closed in 1988, and got bulldozed in the spring of 1989. So, from early 1989 until the mid 1990’s, there were no skatepark pools in all of Southern California. There were whatever backyard pools skaters could sneak into, and the Nude Bowl, the only “bust free” pool to skate. So A LOT of hardcore pool sessions went down, way out there in the desert, in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. All of the modern, public skateparks, that SoCal skaters know today, started with a couple of tiny parks in about 1994, and larger ones with decent sized pools, were built later. From the spring of 1989 until the mid 1990’s, the Nude Bowl was the only “no bust” pool to skate in all of SoCal.
Keith Treanor, with a carving manual over the steps at the Nude Bowl, 1991. Video still from my 2000 BMX video, Animals, at 6:58.
As word of the Nude Bowl’s location got out more, it became more of a skate/party spot. There were much bigger groups of people, bands playing, and night sessions and parties powered by generators and lots of beer. Inevitably, with lots of drunk and crazy people, fights happened. One fight got out of control, and someone got stabbed, and nearly died, in the late 1990’s. The pool soon got buried by civic leaders and law enforcement out there, worried about the potential for worse tragedies.
In 2000, pool skater Dave Reul, with financial backing by Blue Torch TV, spent several days with a crew, equipped with a backhoe and shovels. They dug the pool back out. Then they did serious repairs on the pool, and skate sessions for TV went down that aired on Blue Torch.
Looking down at the Nude Bowl from the remains of the upper building, spring 1990, with the Southern California desert fading off into the background. Video still from my 1990 video, The Ultimate Weekend.
Since 2000, all kinds of sessions, skate, bike, and even freestyle motocross, have gone down at the Nude Bowl, many of which you can watch online. On YouTube you can find a Thrasher video shot there, a Nixon watch/Rolling Stones video, with the pool painted white, and the Stones’ lips and tongue logo painted on it, while skaters shred. There’s a video with FSMXer Colby Raha riding his dirtbike there. Legendary BMXer Dave Voelker’s son, Kole Voelker, is riding the pool on a BMX bike, with Colby in that video. There are also a bunch of skate tourist and YouTuber tourist videos about that place. Those feature people from around the world, venturing out to the Nude Bowl. Some go there to skate, and some just to check it out and make a video.
There are a lot of far better pools to skate or ride, dozens of them now, all over SoCal. The Palm Springs skatepark has a replica of the Nude Bowl, minus the steps. But it’s not the real Nude Bowl. This crazy swimming pool in the desert has been world famous in the skate and bike world for over 40 years now. I think that’s awesome.
As I write this, in July 2024, it’s supposed to be 118 degrees in Palm Springs today. Don’t trek out to the Nude Bowl in the summer. If you want to trek out there, go in spring or fall, or a stretch of good weather in the winter. You may have to empty water from it, so take buckets and towels, and a gas powered pump if you have one. It’s bumpy dirt roads, once you leave the highway, possibly 4 wheel drive only in places, to get there. The condition of the road changes week by week. Take plenty of water, it’s a mile and a half or so off the highway. You don’t want to break down out there on a hot day. No, I didn’t give directions, but you can find them pretty easily online these days, if you really want to check it out.
I couldn’t air to save my life, but I could get a foot under coping on anything. This is me, Steve Emig, carving tile in the Nude Bowl, 1990. Video still from The Ultimate Weekend.
There are no paid links in this post.
