SUMMER CAMP - TO THE MAX ACTION SPORTS FIND HOME IN TEHACHAPI MOUNTAINS.

Byline: Ross Siler Staff Writer

STALLION SPRINGS - The building looks like something out of an industrial park at first, a 54,000-square-foot warehouse big enough to house an entire football field under its roof. Then you step inside to see a skateboarder in baggy jeans plunging down the 13 1/2-foot-high vert ramp at one end.

This is Hangar 18, centerpiece of the new $6 million Woodward West action sports camp - billed as the largest such facility in the western United States - that opened this summer here in the Tehachapi Mountains.

Only this also is the story of a remote Kern County town, located two hours north of Los Angeles, that staked its future on providing a home to the stakeboarders, BMX bikers and in-line skaters most cities turn away.

``People come up to us all the time and say, `This community was going nowhere before you got here,' '' Woodward West director Debbie Williams said. `` `You're going to put Stallion Springs on the map.' ''

In fact, Stallion Springs is nowhere to be found on your Rand McNally atlas. The nearest stoplight is 12 miles away in Tehachapi, and the 2,000-person town still has its own general store and covered bridge along Banducci Road.

But Stallion Springs now has a neighbor with a 20,000-square-foot outdoor concrete skating bowl named The Crater.

More than a thousand kids will attend camp here this summer. And countless professionals have found their way to town - proof that if you build it, skaters will come.

``There's a lot of skate parks that have one thing like this,'' said the camp's skateboard director, Brian Howard, a 12-year pro from San Diego. ``There's nowhere that has so much together in one place.''

With facilities unmatched in California, campers pay $995 for the privilege of attending one of Woodward West's one-week sessions this summer. Not only does the camp boast two street courses inside Hangar 18, there's also a 15-foot outdoor vert ramp and a state-of-the-art elevated skate park under construction.

The hangar has been (some would say appropriately) named after a 1980 movie about a UFO landing in Arizona. The skate park, meanwhile, has been dubbed The Enterprise because of its spaceship-like quality.

Woodward West also will serve as host in August to the Downhill BMX competition of ESPN's X Games, bringing several thousand spectators and a television audience to Stallion Springs and a course that's being built on a nearby hillside.

Taken as a whole, the complex almost defies description. Unless you're 12-year-old BMX biker Tyler Stuart from nearby Bear Valley.

``It's like heaven,'' Stuart said. ``I don't see how anybody could get bored here.''

Added 15-year-old Corey Peters, a Palo Alto native: ``It's not even done yet and this place is hella tight.''

The marriage is as strange as you're going to find in America. A once- failing resort and retirement community with a Republican-leaning population paired with a camp that caters to kids in their Etnies with a passion for punk rock. It needs some explaining.

Westward movement

For nearly a decade now, officials at the famed Woodward action sports camp in Pennsylvania had been looking to expand to the West Coast, where many of their 8,000 campers were arriving from every summer. The only question was when and where.

The original camp was founded in the 1970s, about the same time coincidentally as Stallion Springs, and originally intended to serve as a gymnastics center as founded by one of Penn State's assistant coaches in the sport.

But after the Moscow Olympics boycott, Woodward took a second course. It added facilities for skateboarding during the 1980s craze and exploded in popularity. Now it is the action sports mecca of the United States.

``When I started (as a counselor), I had three months of fun at Woodward and nine months of wanting to go back,'' said Rob Kimler, a BMX pro and one of Woodward West's directors.

``I had other jobs, but I was always waiting for camp to start.''

Once the decision was made to add a California location, Williams said Woodward started by scouting locations closer to Los Angeles. But the camp never could get a land deal to its liking.

Enter Stallion Springs, where the local lodge and Old West-themed ``Boomtown'' for kids had gone bankrupt and were searching for a buyer. But the site wasn't perfect. ``Boomtown'' was overrun with weeds and filled with dilapidated buildings.

``If you saw this place 2 1/2 years ago, it looked like a ghost town that was about to crumble,'' Stallion Springs general manager David Aranda said. ``I don't think it's a stretch to say Woodward has helped save this community.''

With approximately 330 days of sunlight a year and an altitude of more than 4,000 feet to keep things cool, the camp agreed to a deal with Stallion Springs. Woodward West would take over Boomtown and run the renamed Lodge at Woodward West.

But it took more than a little convincing of residents to allow the camp in.

The public hearings surrounding Woodward West's approval were the most widely attended and some of the most contentious in town history, Aranda said, featuring questions about everything from water rates to noise.

Since then, however, Woodward West has won over nearly all of the community (95 percent, according to Aranda's estimate), holding open houses and welcoming visitors.

Last month's grand opening featured skydivers and a ska band. The camp even has been mentioned in some recent housing listings. No matter if some of the residents still can't quite understand the concept of action sports.

``There were people who definitely couldn't get it,'' Williams said. ``When they hear action sports, they think of somebody with tattoos and piercings. They couldn't equate that with their summer-camp experience of roasting marshmallows around the fire.''

With the camp open, it seems like a different star is arriving by the day at Woodward West. Skateboarders Andy Macdonald and Pierre-Luc Gagnon have stopped by to ride. So have the wondrous Yasutoko brothers of in-line skating, one of whom touched the Hangar 18 roof on the vert ramp.

The only rule is that the professionals have to be kid-friendly. Woodward West promotes a wholesome environment. That means no swearing, no inappropriate T-shirts and, definitely, no smoking.

Aranda added Woodward West has succeed in putting the town on the map - literally. After moving in, Williams asked the post office to begin referring to the unincorporated area as Stallion Springs instead of Tehachapi.

Like regular summer camp

As for the camp itself, Woodward West might as well be a Club Med for kids ages 7 to 17. It is not your typical $5-a-day community skate park and is not open to the general public as a result.

Instead, Woodward West aims to provide a traditional summer-camp experience.

There are ice cream socials. There is swim time. There are cabins with bunk beds. There is lights out at 10:30 p.m. And even at an action sports camp, there is the occasional case of homesickness, Williams said.

During the day, campers spend 2 1/2 hours in morning instruction for their various sports. Depending on who has stopped by, it's also an opportunity to ride or skate alongside the pros that campers read about in magazines or see on videos.

``We know who they are,'' said Ben Kellgren, an 18-year-old counselor from Petaluma. ``When you're at home, they seem so distant. Then they stop by and they're like anybody else.''

Campers typically arrive Sunday afternoon and the Woodward West setting is so overwhelming, the staff has had to limit how much time the kids can spend on the ramps and rails. Too many campers have tried to do too much the first day.

``This is like Disneyland to them,'' said Paul Williams, the 24-year-old in-line skating director from Australia. ``That's the only way to explain it.'' After a noon lunch, in one case fish fillets and potato pancakes, the kids can spend up to another nine hours riding, skating, playing video games or bowling on one of the camp's eight lanes.

There is a foam pit for BMXers to practice backflips and a movie theater showing skating videos. Woodward West even coordinated with its gymnastics side to let the action sports campers learn aerial skills on trampolines.

Most important, the camp is trying to uphold a reputation. The original Woodward in Pennsylvania is known for adding a new component every year, be it a skate park, ramp or whatever. And Woodward West's plans already call for ``Future Improvements'' on its land.

``I want a kid to walk in and have his jaw on the floor,'' said Kimler, who helped design the camp. ``I want this to be the best camp in the world. We have a huge amount to live up to here.''

Ross Siler, [phone]

ross.siler(at)dailynews.com

AT A GLANCE

What: Woodward West

Address: 28400 Stallion Springs Drive, Stallion Springs, CA 93561

Phone: [phone]

Web site: www.woodwardwest.com

E-mail address: office(at)woodwardwest.com

2003 camps: May 31-Aug. 30

Single session: $995 per week

Each additional session: $945 per week

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, box

Photo:

(1) Adam Sanchez of Placerville performs a one-handed pancake in the outdoor park at Woodward West's action sports camp in Stallion Springs.

(2 -- 3) Lyn-z Adams of San Diego performs a skateboard trick at the new $6 million camp. Brandon Purcell (headline photo) of Missoula, Mont., is undeterred after receiving four stitches to his face from a bike crash.

(4) Connor Tyrrel of San Clemente flies off a jump inside the 54,000- square-foot facility known as Hangar 18.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer

Box:

AT A GLANCE (see text)