Grooming update
Updates are posted to the POP Facebook page immediately after grooming. Please note the date and in the feed below to confirm when the trails were last groomed.
For the latest grooming report for Pine Street Woods’ XC ski trails, please visit the Sandpoint Nordic Club’s site.
Have you had a look at the draft Little Sand Creek Watershed Rec Plan yet? This is where you can preview the long-anticipated IMBA trail plan, along with other great components, that together lay out a vision for recreation in our public front country watershed (which includes the Lower Basin)!![]()
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You have only until end of this week to leave your comments for the City, which you can do directly on the City website! Please let your elected officials and City staff know how you feel about this vision for recreation right in Sandpoint's backyard!![]()
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communityfeedback.opengov.com
Please share your thoughts, questions and any concerns. The City of Sandpoint wants your input.
We will be back at the PSW parking lot at 5:30pm today for some fun laps around the PSW and VTT trails. This is a family friendly, moderate, no-drop ride.![]()
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With the recent rain, these trails have been riding so well! This is a great way to learn the trails in the Syringa Trail system and to enjoy the fruits of the hard work POP volunteers have been doing to build and maintain these trails!
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Meanwhile, in VTT we had one crew of ten volunteers doing some fine tuning of Cracker Pants, including tread widening, back sloping, corridor widening, and building some rollers between the berms, while another crew focused on the top 1/4th of Wabi Sabi, building a "pucker plank" as a qualifier feature right at the entrance to one of VTT's two black trails and another team doing some rock work in the steep chute just below this.![]()
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VTT is riding great right now. If you're bummed about the LB Blue DH being closed, come hone your tech skills in VTT.
Day one of work by @collaborativetrails on Lower Basin Blue DH. A couple of before and after pics to give you an idea of what we're going for in there. Rebuilt the eroded, blown out, steep and narrow runout at the very bottom of the trail with a beautifully insloped, bermed turn dumping riders right into the first of the big bridges. Replaced what was always intended to be a temporary wood jump with a 20 foot dirt tabletop using the nearly infinite perfect dirt available in this section of the Watershed.![]()
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Note that we are not changing the alignment of the Blue DH trail at all... In fact we are not allowed to modify it by more than 10 feet uphill or downhill from its existing alignment. All we are doing is turning what was initially an underbuilt flow trail into a properly built flow trail.![]()
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When POP first built this trail 8 years ago we did it with a tiny 1-ton excavator (the good old Takeuchi TB-108). This time Collaborative Trails is using their 3-ton Kubota U27, a machine with more than three times the power and lifting capacity of the machine that first built this trail.![]()
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So, based on my math, that means the trail, when finished, will have three times the flow, three times the fun, and three times the sickness as it did before! Bear with us folks! We can't wait to enjoy the new LB Blue DH with you later this summer!
Back to the Syringa System for tonight's trail work party. Join us! All are welcome. Tools and apres work beers provided! Bring gloves, water, and bug spray!
Lower Basin Blue DH trail below Switchback 4 is officially closed for maintenance.![]()
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I've included just one photo of the kind of issue we'll be addressing. After the last rain this foot deep channel formed in the middle of the trail tread right at the bottom of this segment of trail. In addition to addressing drainage issues like this, we'll be building up the berms, extending them, widening the tread and building more rollers and some tabletop jumps to turn this into a true blue flow trail.![]()
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Within three weeks we'll have designed and flagged a new 1/3rd mile flow section to connect this to Switchback 4, eliminating the need to pedal the hand built segment currently paralleling the road. Plan is then to continue machine work on the new segment of trail so by sometime in July we can cut the ribbon on the first public flow trail Bonner County! With the Watershed Rec Plan set to be adopted next month we can expect a ton more new trails of all difficulty levels, tech and flow, to be developed in the coming years.
Heads up mountain bikers! Starting tomorrow (Thursday) the Lower Basin blue DH trail (formally known as Lower Basin XC) will be closed most of the time for the next several weeks. Read the notice above for details of the improvements we will be making.![]()
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Goal is to have the work on the existing trail completed within three weeks, by which time the new Blue Flow trail from switchback 4 down to the existing trail will have been fully flagged and designed. Our crew will then move directly into construction of the new, 0.3-mile flow segment.![]()
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By end of June or early July we will have, for all intents and purposes, a brand new, modern, fully built 1-mile flow trail below Switchback 4. Once completed, we'll decommission the 0.3-mile hand built stretch that currently parallels the road along with the top three turns on the existing trail.![]()
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This project represents the next phase in our Lower Basin Buildout plan, which is described in great detail in the draft Watershed Recreation Plan, currently available to review and provide feedback on at the City's website. Check it out here: communityfeedback.opengov.com/portals/sandpointid/Issue_12881
I joined Rose from Friends of Scotchman Peaks Wilderness this morning on KRFY to talk about the exciting developments in the trail world in and around Sandpoint! Check it out!