Stevens Pass bike park clears final hurdle
With Forest Service permit appeals resolved, ski area officials plan to build facility next spring
STEVENS PASS — The Stevens Pass Ski Area can finally begin construction on a mountain bike park and trail system.
The U.S. Forest Service gave Stevens Pass the final green light last week after appeals of an earlier approval were resolved, officials said.
“We’ve been working on this for a very long time, and we’re excited to see it move forward and progress,” Chris Rudolph, marketing director at Stevens Pass, told KOHO radio of Leavenworth.
The closest mountain bike park now is located in Whistler, B.C. The same company that designed and built the Whistler facility — Gravity Logic — is behind the Stevens Pass park as well.
The Forest Service signed off on the project five months ago. But Conservation Northwest, the Sierra Club and the Tualip Tribes appealed the decision, saying construction would hurt a wolverine population around the ski area, located 30 miles west of Leavenworth.
“All concerns have been handled with the parties involved,” Joel Martinez, the ski area’s director of operations, told the radio station. “We’re good to go from that end.”
Martinez and Rudolph said that Stevens Pass won’t have any time to actually move dirt on the project until after the snow season, but will take the rest of 2010 to map out its construction plans.
The hope is that people can be using the five planned trails (three machine-made, two hand-built) by late next summer.
The three machine-made trails will be in ascending order of difficulty.
The park will operate in a similar fashion to the ski area.
Patrons will be able to rent mountain bikes at the park if they don’t bring their own. Ski chair lifts will be modified to accommodate the bikes, which will travel up the hill ahead of the riders.
“It takes all the uphill pedaling out, and just leaves the excitement of going down,” Martinez said.
“We plan to have food-service options up there as well, and the hope is that it will turn us into a year-round mountain recreation area,” Rudolph said.
Matt Rose, a Wenatchee resident and board member of the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, was pleased to hear the news, especially after the appeals threatened to drag out in the courts indefinitely.
“I think it’s always been a great idea, and it’s great that it seems like it’s finally going to happen,” Rose said. “It’s the type of scenario that gives young people something to do in our valley, which is sorely needed here and just about anywhere.”
