The straight goods on Kicking Horse Bike Park, straight from the trail crew's fingertips.
When it was announced that Kicking Horse Bike Park would offer up the first two days of the season for free to locals, we immediately checked the weather forecast and our hearts missed a beat or two. Rain. And plenty of it two days before we opened with all freshly groomed trails. Rain and tires are like fans and turds - the mix makes a nasty mess. With baited breath we put our faith into two things: the fallibility of weather forecasts, and all the drainage efforts we have put in during the past years. Was our faith rewarded? Details inside,
I guess those fancy computers at the weather office are earning their money. It poured on Wednesday. And rained on Thursday. And snowed at the top Friday morning. Things were looking dire for our seasonal how-do-you-do. But then by Friday afternoon the sun came out and the moisture started drying up. Saturday and Sunday turned out to be two of the best days of biking ever at Kicking Horse. Fresh, tacky trails; glorious, sunny vistas; happy, filthy people.
Here's a video of Andy Bostock and Ryan Kuhn, two racers determined to make me throw up trying to follow (I almost died at 00:22*). It showcases Superberm as this post's Featured Trail (in fact, it is the first Featured Trail, ever!):
The whole crew threw their weight at the long list of chores needed to be done in order to crack KHBP open for the public. This is a photo of my work list from just Thursday:
Here's a run down on what has been going on, trails-wise:
Buffalo Jump: We've been wanting to replace all the crappy off-cut decking that is scattered here and there from the paleoscholeic era, starting with last year's major resurfacing of the Bridge From Space on Kranky Pants. Fortunately, this winter broke the back of the second bridge on Buffalo Jump. The stringers were shot, so we dismantled the whole 10 metres and built a bit of a hip jump instead.
Pioneer: In anticipation of the Western Cup in August, we will be slightly tweaking the race course through the summer. But only slightly. The glory of Pioneer and Claim Jumper are their status as Old School. Unlike the buffed-as-a-baby's-bottom smooth trails in vogue these days, Pioneer and CJ more resemble the wrinkled, cracked faces of wizened old men. The berm below the rock drop popular with the racers was reassembled after being scattered to the winds over the years.
Rock N Roll: Unfortunately the new entrance isn't dry enough to open yet. After it emerged from under the snow, the soil retained a lot of moisture. Then the rains came. So now the berms need some sunny days. In the meantime, the damn ungulates have been poaching the trail with their pointy hooves. It's kooky, they don't walk along the bottoms, but actually rail the tops of the berms. Bambi and her cohorts are seriously having fun out there. Our plan is to capture them and attach snowshoes to their hooves so they can tamp instead of damage. We're looking for self-insured, volunteer deer wranglers.
Superberm: Superberm II, the newest section built on a swamp two years ago, has been a drainage puzzle since it's inception. We have returned repeatedly to scratch our noodles, shift earth about and construct bridges. Seems to be working. We approached SBII with trepidition last week, anticipating many more hours of labour to patch it back together. Boy, were we pleasantly surprised. Best. Shape. Ever. It appears that the major drainage issues have been sorted. Three gooey berms were replaced last year with mineral soil and the payoff is obvious. One of them we didn't even touch this spring, and barely raked the others. For a work gang pressed for time, this is a big deal.
And the embarrassing plywood swamp berm at the bottom of SBII has been replaced with a tight, low-profile berm (it has to be low profile as it is on a groomed ski run). If successful we will soon be enjoying a plywood bonfire.
Blaster: One of the satisfactions of returning to the trail crew every year is the sense of satisfaction when a nemesis is vanquished. Iceberg rocks, stumps and logs root themselves to the earth and don't move despite the exhortations and efforts of us puny human weaklings. So they taunt us with their stubbornness. Well, we're stubborn too. We come back each season and tap them to see if their attitude has changed. On Sunday, this gruesome specimen that was planted in the middle of upper Blaster gave up its grip.
The snow is still low, so we won't yet get a chance to work on any trails higher than Blaster. But we'll make sure the lower park is good to go again for this weekend. We are open Friday to Sunday, then the following weekend we open full time. Thanks for all the great comments on trail, on blogs and on forums - the keep us fired and inspired. See you up here.
Ride on.
Crowe
www.kickinghorseresort.com*I didn't almost die
