The extensive mountain bike trail network at Spokane’s Camp Sekani Park and Beacon Hill will soon see the addition of a professionally-designed mountain bike skills-building area and pump track, thanks to years of work on the part of volunteers with Evergreen East. The project has been in the works for over a decade, and with recent approval of the plan by Spokane Parks & Recreation, a team of professional builders from Evergreen East Mountain Bike Alliance based out of the Seattle area should have shovels in the dirt by early April. Completion of the skills area is expected to take five weeks and another two or three weeks for the pump track, says Evergreen East’s operations manager David Goode.
The Beacon Hill Bike Park and Pump Track will be built past the jumps at the east end of Camp Sekani Park. The park will include a total overhaul of the existing skills-building features, including improvements to the three existing wooden drops where riders can build their skills and confidence to take on bigger drops, massive improvements to the trail rock garden, a re-build of the existing progressive jump lines with a third one added, and making the whole skills park better-connected and more intuitive for all levels of riders. Goode says the goal for the skills area is to help riders develop their skills to be able to take on other trails and jumps around Camp Sekani and Beacon Hill.
The 4,500 square foot pump track—a packed-dirt, continuous circuit of rollers, banked turns, and jumps best ridden with a “pumping” motion that builds momentum—will sit at the center of the bike park skills area. The pump track will weave in and out of the pines, giving it a natural feel, says Goode. “It will be perfect for everyone from kids on Strider bikes to experts.” While there isn’t another park in the Northwest that will be as large and professionally built as the one in the works for Spokane, says Goode, the one at Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park near Seattle is the closest example of what riders can expect.
For those who want to support the bike park, Evergreen East is hosting a fundraiser premier of the mountain bike film “The Moment,” which documents the rise of the freeride movement, on April 15 from 5-8:30 p.m. at the Washington Cracker Company Building downtown Spokane. Tickets are $5 and funds raised at the event from ticket sales, auction items, donations, and beverage proceeds will help cover the projected $40-50k cost of the new bike park. More info and tickets are available at Evergreeneast.org. //
