Mt. Washington Opens Park - 6ix Pak High Speed Lift

On Canada’s Birthday, say goodbye to mountain bike lift lines. July 1st, Mount Washington Alpine Resort will offer a partial opening of its Mountain Bike Park. New trails and a new summer lift that will be the exclusive domain of bikers is what's in store.Built to open up new winter terrain, The Hawk High Speed 6ix Pak lift carries, as the name implies, six riders per chair. Don Sharpe is the Director of Business Services for Mount Washington. “With the huge growth in the Bike Park over the past couple of seasons, adding the lift power of The Hawk to the Bike Park was a logical progression.” Bikes, needing more space, will be carried on separate chairs and brand new racks will hold up to four bikes. The lift will run at its winter speed, meaning a trip back to the offload will take less than 8 minutes. Use your energy and concentration mastering the new trails and relax as The Hawk moves you and your ride back up the hill.

Can you say kid in a candy store? Brand new trails, brand new hits and butter smooth sweepers are just part of the sugar high. For those new to the sport, a brand new novice/intermediate trail, perfect for the hard tail (front shock only) bike, is ready to roll. It’s called The Finger Trail and a camera in the storage pocket of the hydration pack is a necessity as there are six plus certified “photo moments” as the scenery stretches out over the mountain range all the way to the west coast of Vancouver Island. The Finger is 6 kilometres in length.


Another new intermediate trail is a 2.3 km roller called Big Brother, and like the organization that shares the same name, it will be your new best friend. And for the “Hollywood run”, the expert Helter Skelter is 1600 metres of pure adrenaline as it cuts under the Hawk for the first couple of hundred metres.

Mount Washington Alpine Resort has a full mountain bike tech and demo centre, featuring Norco Atomik VPS, A Line VPS and Sasquatch bikes. Nokian is the Official Bike Tire of Mount Washington. Mtn Tek is also equipped with body armour and regular as well as full-face helmets to rent. Check out the rental rates on-line at www.mountwashington.ca.


Riding The Hawk High Speed 6ix Pak lift is akin to sitting on a fast moving flying couch that is over 3 metres, or 10 feet, wide. And take a look at the progression of the soon-to-open Four Cross course that will be below the lower half of the chairlift, as the resort gets ready to host The SISU BC Cup Finals on August 28th and 29th. Other mountain bike events this summer include The Nokian Humpday Race Series, every Wednesday night in August, and The Norco VPS Fest, a gathering of Norco riders that will see owners of the brand getting a free lift and rider pass for either July 17 or 18. The Norco Factory Team will be on the mountain and their full tech support set up will be in the resort courtyard that weekend.

Opening day of the entire Bike Park will be announced soon, as the snow continues to melt at the higher elevations. This will allow the use of The Eagle Express Quad to access the trails beginning at the summit. The Eagle has been running for tourists since Saturday, June 26th. With the addition of bikers in a few days, this will give the resort a bike park that has 30 km of trails and two lifts running till October 11th.

For more info, call Mount Washington Alpine Resort at 1-888-231-1499 or surf to the resort’s web page to download the trail map. Mount Washington Alpine Resort is located above The Comox Valley on BC’s Vancouver Island.