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Former desert waterpark left to run dry has become skateboarders' paradise

The amazing pictures show almost every inch of the park covered in graffiti, including the ground, walls, steps, and raised canopies. Images show the entrance to the water park, with slides leading to what were pools left bone dry.

[A Mojave Desert Setting with Avawatz Peak. A setting looking to the northwest while taking in views across a Mojave Desert setting while at a roadside pullout along California State Route 127. What drew me into the setting was the flat openness of the desert setting with the sagebrush and other desert plant-life present. I decided to angle my Nikon SLR camera slightly downward to create more of a sweeping view across that, and leading up to the more distant ridges and peaks of the Avawatz Mountains.]

The waterpark was once a popular attraction for people travelling through California's Mojave Desert (stock image)(Image: Getty Images)

Incredible pictures show how an abandoned waterpark has been completely covered in graffiti, more than 20 years after it closed. Photos posted on Reddit show what remains of the former attraction, which welcomed visitors for more than 40 years before finally closing down in 2004.

The amazing pictures show almost every inch of the park covered in graffiti, including the ground, walls, steps, and raised canopies. Images show the entrance to the water park, with slides leading to what were pools left bone dry, as well as the remains of huts, former water tanks, and pipes.

You can clearly see where water once flowed, now left dry in the desert heat. Colourful billboards still line the road on the approach to the waterpark, according to a report by Business Insider.

Lake Dolores Waterpark in the Mojave Desert, California, was opened by local businessman Bob Byers in 1962. It featured man-made lakes, slides, bumper boats, a zip line, and other rides and attractions.

Byers shut the site down in the 1980s, but it was later renovated and re-opened in 1998 as the 1950s-themed Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark, according to Business Insider. But disaster struck in 1999 when an employee was paralysed after using a slide out of hours.

The legal settlement cost the park $4.4 million, according to Business Insider, and it went bankrupt the following year. It reopened as Discovery Waterpark in 2002, but closed for good two years later.

In 2020 plans to turn it into a "roadside playground" emerged, and in 2021 the site was listed for $11 million Plans have since been approved to bring it back to life with a 22-acre lake, water park, and RV park, Business Insider reports. However since then there have been no signs of work beginning.

Many Reddit users said the former waterpark looked like an ideal place to go skateboarding. One said: "First image looks like something out of a Tony Hawk game." Another replied: "People do skate here pretty frequently to my knowledge."

A third wrote: "Had some great memories coming up as a teen. Wed be heading to or from Vegas and would stop, skate, chill and meet some interesting people."

Another user wrote: "How cool. I actually spray painted those black triangles on the awning in the first picture.

"I worked art department for a drone commercial that was filmed out there. They needed all profanity/religious symbols/anything generally inappropriate to be spray painted over, so I had to trek the whole park looking for things to spray paint over. It was pretty fun."

Others reflected on the use of water in a desert climate. One wrote: "In a few decades when the worlds major powers are fighting deadly wars over water resources, future generations will look back at places like this with amazement/disgust. I guess some already do."

Another replied: "At least most of the water is pumped back into the system in a water park. Lets talk about sprawling golf courses in the desert."

Another commenter wrote: "I actually went to this water park when it was open. Also was stationed nearby."

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