Burgeoning
bike trails S
A mountain biker exits the Squirrel Master trail, just above Schweitzer’s village.
By Matt Conger
ince the 1990s, Schweitzer has allowed thrill-seeking mountain bikers to bring their bikes up the chairlift so they could ride back down to the village. The mountain gained a reputation as a rocky and rough place to hone bike skills and quickly became a favorite to downhill mountain bikers. In the early 2000s, Schweitzer hosted multiple years of the National Off Road Bike Association (NORBA) race series, a national mountain bike competition that brought professional bikers to Schweitzer from around the country to compete in downhill and cross-country style racing. Since then Schweitzer’s trail network saw some slow growth with the addition of a couple of new trails including Bear Grass and Pinch Flat in the late 2000s, but development of more new trails and maintenance of the current trail network stayed relatively stagnant until recently. With bikes being sold in record numbers, an increase in mountain bike rentals, and more interest in lift-access mountain bike tickets, Schweitzer has once again started to invest in the trail network. The summer of 2020 saw the first new bike trail in years, Squirrel Master, and with the purchase of a new trail machine, the revamped trail crew led by terrain park manager Dan Nylund, set out to rebuild berms and fix problem areas on the other existing trails. Bear Grass and Upper Pinch Flat both had the majority of the berms rebuilt and the skills park got a facelift with all-new jumps, drops, and rollers. Now that the crew has finished up with some much-needed trail maintenance projects, they have been able to turn their focus to new trail additions. The Schweitzer trail crew has been working hard on a new lower section of Pinch Flat, the main black diamond trail off the summit. This lower section will extend down towards the Sunnyside area of the mountain instead of following the old rocky road to Bear Grass like the old Pinch Flat used to do. Look for this new trail to be rideable in the summer of 2022. With the need for even more new trails and the fact that the Schweitzer trail crew has been busy on trail projects of their own, Schweitzer decided to bring on two additional trail companies to build new bike trails in their downhill trail network. 2021 • 2022 | Schweitzer Magazine
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