Business owner also skateboarding legend

MOSES LAKE - Check out the videos for Josh Mohs online, and - yeah, that's Josh riding that skateboard off that loading dock. That's Mohs sliding down the hand rail on that staircase. That's Mohs looping back and forth in that concrete storm drain, stopping to throw a few tricks on the edge, looping back through ankle-deep running water.

That's Josh, flipping that skateboard in a 360 while leaping down that set of stairs, and that's Josh - dude. Dude. Okay, that's Josh on the skateboard, and are those - man, are you, like, riding the pipes sticking out of that building? Really, dude? Seriously?

Those are some sick tricks, man.

They're sick enough - in modern slang that means good enough - to have gained Mohs, Moses Lake, a following among boarders and a pro contract, with a Josh Mohs skateboard, from ATM.

"We look at things differently, y'know," Mohs, 34, said. Skateboarders walk down the street, and they're always measuring that double set of stairs, that open plaza with the benches, those big pipes next to that building. "We're always looking around and asking, 'How can we take that obstacle that was never intended for skateboarding and skate it?'" he said.

"There's never an end to it. It's always evolving. You're always getting better." Skateboarders are always finding something new to do with park benches, stairs, stacks of industrial pipes, hand rails and even empty swimming pools.

Just go to YouTube and type in Josh Mohs. It's all there, from Mohs and other boarders sliding down stair rails and leaping from the sidewalk to loading dock, to jumping entire flights of stairs.

The apparently effortless leaps and balancing on a stair rail is actually the result of long practice. "I've been skateboarding 22 years myself," Mohs said.

"I was probably 11 when I started skating." He saw older kids skating and thought it looked like fun, he said, so he got a skateboard and started experimenting. That was in Othello, where he grew up.

Othello wasn't exactly filled with good skating places. "There was a spot at Othello High School that had a little bit of everything, stairs and rails and ledges. That's where we skated all the time."

Nowadays skateboarders are the focus of lovingly crafted sales pitches. But back in the day boarders were thought of like other athletes, although maybe with a few more rough edges. "A good pair of basketball shoes back in the '80s was a good skate shoe," he said.

"Now there's a whole industry," Mohs said. Skateboards are sized for tricks or street riding, well-known skaters endorse their own boards, and shoe and clothing companies have skateboard lines.

But the classic ways of getting known are still part of the mix. Mohs said he worked and spent most of his free time on his skateboard. "I always had some kind of job. Always had to support my own habit." He competed in local contests, others in Seattle and Spokane, and his performances in the contest videos got some attention and eventually a sponsor. "My first sponsor was a skate shop out of Spokane," Mohs said. "Skate shops are pretty integral in that role."

Mohs owns his own shops in Moses Lake and Richland, both named Mosaik, and he's carrying on the tradition. "We have a team that we sponsor. The kids that stand out to me, who should be on the next level."

Unfortunately, a sponsorship didn't come with a lot of money, and by 2001 Mohs had a family. "A career in skateboarding wasn't really the moneymaker then. It was more the hobby and the dream," he said.

He started his own shop in Moses Lake. And he got a call from ATM, who wanted to sponsor a board with Mohs' name on it.

"That feels good. It's a dream come true, what every kid who skates would like to accomplish," Mohs said.

There is a professional tour and Mohs does a little of that, but his own business and family - and increasing age - have limited his participation. "I do more of demonstrations and exhibitions" and making videos, he said.

Some of those jumps down stairs and sliding down rails look perfectly hair-raising to the untrained eye. But Mohs said an experienced skateboarder can judge the risks.

"You get to the point where you know what you're capable of," he said. Some skateboarders concentrate on tricks, while others favor the curvilinear courses that resemble empty swimming pools. "Things are all hard in a different way," he said.

An experienced skateboarder will let the board do part of the work. "All that impact - the board takes 90 percent of it," Mohs said. Mess up the move, and all that momentum is transferred to the body of the skateboarder. That's what happened to Mohs in a move immortalized in one of his videos. "That hurt," he said, referring to an attempt to jump a rail that went wrong.

But skateboarders learn how to minimize impact. "You learn how to fall, you learn how to roll out of tricks so that you don't get hurt too bad," he said.

And it rocks when a skateboarder nails the move. "Absolutely. The feeling of accomplishment when landing a trick - instant gratification, I suppose."

Skateboarding "takes so much practice, determination, fearlessness. You can't just get on a board and do this," Mohs said.

Time has taken its toll, he said, and he doesn't do so many of the tricks. But skateboarding is something he plans to pursue as long as he can. "It's kind of with you for your life."