Fall Trail Building and the Beginnings of Something Epic

1 Oct 2013

The lift may have stopped turning but the Silver Star Bike Park Trail Crew is still hard at it!

We had a great season in the Bike Park. Trail Crew accomplished more this year than we have since the expansion in ’05. We pounded out 3 new XC trails, re-built upper Shazam, re-tooled Blast off (wait till you see that next spring), did a re-route on Super Star (that is going to get tweaked a little), built the all New Jedi Mind Trick and started work on pushing Jedi all the way to the top! On top of that, I think we managed to keep up with maintenance quite well too. All this done with only a 5 man crew!

With all that hard work, the Crew still has not stopped. We are building a new trail right through until the snow flies. The idea is to have a bunch more trail pushed through so it can sit this winter and be ready to ride in the spring. How are we doing this…? Our ownership has bought into the growth of the “all mountain / Enduro” market. This is great! We are rolling full steam ahead with a $250,000 expansion to the Silver Star Bike Park! We are taking the trail crew from 5 hard working guys to 12, we will have 4 excavators going all summer, there will be a new trail popping up every week next summer and we can focus more energy back into the bike park.

The plan is to have three dedicated building teams. The first will continue on the current XC product we started this summer and expand that network. This area is all around the Knoll and intertwines with the winter snowshoe trails. This is the area you will see new trails popping up constantly throughout the summer.

The second team will start building the “Epic”. This is going to take you from the Village, out to Alder Point (soak in the views), then drop you all the way down into Putnam. There is some deep dark forest down there! You are going to feel like you are in Never Never Land with mossy old growth forests and huge cedars. When we started scouting out the line this summer I was shocked to find this kind of forest in the dry Okanagan. From there you will have to climb back out and around to the front side of the mountain. This will take a couple years to complete, but will be built in such a way as you can ride it in sections to begin with. The plan is to have the Alder Point out and back completed sometime next summer. We started on this section of trail this fall and are currently working on right now. It will also double as a single track climb to the top of the mountain. I will post some photos next week of the build.

The third team will stay focused on the Bike Park. This is very exciting for all the DH’ers in the crowd. This year we divided our resources to get the XC / Enduro product off the ground. Next summer we have big plans to rebuild sections of trail, push in new trail and take our maintenance/grooming program to the next level! I will give you a little tease of the plans in the next update.

To say the very least; next year is the year Silver Star blows up! This is what the summer team has been working toward over the past several years. We believe we have a great Bike Park and the people are coming to see what all the hype is about, but next year if you don’t make it to Silver Star you are going to be kicking yourself.

LaterCam