Desert West Skateboard Plaza

Desert West had a taste of the limelight when its 2011 PhxAM Skateboard Tournament aired on ESPN. But while cameras zoomed in on amateurs and professionals performing kick-ass kick-flips, manuals, and serious airtime, our eyes were stuck on the park's features — more than 25,000 square feet of skateboard-only curbs, bumps, hips, steps, and three full bowls. Sounds sick enough for national coverage, but the park scored big when local artists Thomas Marcus Breeze and Lalo Cota exhausted an army of spray paint cans when they canvassed the concrete with their signature interlocking designs and grinning skeletons. Now, that's a pretty sweet view — even if you're spending less time landing tricks and more time eating the painted pavement.