ABRIACHAN FOREST TRUST

Mark Hedderwick was contracted by Abriachan Forest Trust to repair and build new access paths, mountain bike trails for use by recreational visitors. Abriachan is a scattered rural community of about 130 people set high above the shores of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland. There are still some active crofts in the area, but the majority of inhabitants are employed in the Inverness area and beyond.

In 1998, the community purchased 540 hectares of forest and open hill ground from Forest Enterprise. Since then, the Abriachan Forest Trust has managed this land to create local employment, improve the environment, and encourage its enjoyment by the public through a network of spectacular paths, family-suited mountain bike trails, innovative outdoor learning, as well as health and well-being opportunities.

Site visit 2

At the Abriachan Forest Trust car park, Mark was delighted to show off a new mountain bike skills area, known as a ‘pump track’ with a series of different height rolling mounds and in a race track compact design, with lots of twists and turns, and constructed with various base layers of stone and topped off with a ne layer of quarry dust for a grippy and smooth nish.

Further into the forest, we met up with Ronan Taylor. Working for Hitrak Ltd, Ronan was leading the crew on technically challenging work. Ronan has his own business called Taylor’s Trail Design & Tuition. He’s operated excavators for over four years and has been building mountain bike trails for almost 19 years, with seven of those years working alongside various plant and equipment.

Ronan and his crew are all part-time mountain bike racers and therefore bring specialist knowledge and experience to the job of repairing and building new Green, Blue, and Red-graded biking routes in an area of the forest known as Kelpie mountain bike trails.