Celebrating Trails and Raising Funds at Black Rock
This past weekend Black Rock Mountain Bike Association hosted an open house and fundraiser at the Black Rock Mountain Bike Area that featured well-known brands such as Chris King, SRAM, Transition Bikes, and more. Since it’s only an hour and a half drive from Portland, I decided to head down for the day to check it out. It’s my goal this summer to hit up as many events as I can locally and regionally. In the world of mountain biking and trail building, there’s a never-ending supply of content here in the Pacific Northwest.
One of the builders at Black Rock has been inviting me down to the various dig days at the trail system, but my schedule never entirely lined up. While this past weekend wasn’t a trail-building work party, it was an excellent opportunity to check out first-hand to see all the work underway. During my time there on Saturday, one of the themes I kept hearing from riders was “revitalizing Black Rock.” What happened?
In 2021 there was a major storm that caused the bike park to shut down. The Black Rock Mountain Bike Association partners with the Oregon Department of Forestry (ODF) to develop and maintain the property. It is the first ODF-approved “mountain bikes only” trail system. Over the past couple of years, extensive work has been done by a mixture of volunteer and professional trail builders. A quick scroll through Black Rock’s social media page features countless work parties on its timeline. Trails were rebuilt. Some had wooden features that needed to be redone. Other trails were worked on to improve flow and the rider experience. The Open House was a day of celebration for all the work that went into these trails.
I wasn’t planning on riding myself that day, but I usually bring my bike to get around in various trail systems and up fire roads to take photos. Luckily, as I parked Nacho the Van at the bottom, there was a van of high schoolers headed to the top bringing supplies for the event, so I hopped in. We reached the event space with an assortment of tents for the brands participating. From local bike shops to larger well-known brands, it was buzzing with activity, conversation, and food. Bikes were stashed all around, and others were pushing bikes and making plans for where to ride.
After chatting with several riders, I discovered a great place to hike up to where one of the trails was brought back to life, and so I found myself on Sunday Stroll. I walked down to a freshly-built massive berm that several riders were sessioning. The build was fresh. The dirt was prime. It doesn’t get any better than this. What was even better was the community that was all around. Lots of laughter, conversation, and whooping and hollering.
Later on, I found another feature that riders were sessioning and hung out a bit before I made my way back to the base camp of the event. It couldn’t have been a better day. Riders descended to Black Rock from all over the region. Stoke was at an all-time high.
There’s a lot to unpack from a celebratory day like this. There are numerous topics or themes that warrant more exploration. There’s much more to be discussed and written about regarding such things as partnerships with federal agencies, mixing in volunteers with hired trail builders on projects like this, the involvement of local brands and bike shops getting behind trail systems, and the actual trails themselves.
One of the topics of personal interest to me is the economic impact that trails can potentially have on rural communities. I’m still reflecting on my time a week ago in Darrington, Washington, at the Shovel & Shred event. It was clear the impact of trails and outdoor recreation was having on the town. Black Rock sits outside of Falls City. I first became acquainted with Falls City not because of mountain biking but of an article I read about its poverty. The poverty level of the town sits at nearly 40%. It’s the classic tale of a community plunging into poverty as money from the timber industry dries up. According to the article Big Money Bought the Forests. Small Logging Communities Are Paying the Price, “half of the families in Falls City live on weekly food deliveries from the Mountain Gospel Fellowship.”
With tens of thousands of mountain bikers driving through Falls City on the way to Black Rock each year, how could that benefit a community like Falls City? In mountain biking and trail building, we talk a lot about the economic impact of new trails on a community. We have plenty of examples where it has. I don’t have the answers, and while it may be odd to bring this up during a day of celebration for the trails, it’s at least a conversation worth having. More and better trails will draw more riders to the area. What kind of impact can this have on Falls City? I’m also confident much more is happening on that front that I’m unaware of. I’m looking forward to following the growth of Black Rock.
Words: Sean Benesh Photos: Sean Benesh
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Benesh
Sean is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Trail Builder Mag. He is also the Communications Director for the Northwest Trail Alliance in Portland, Oregon. While in grad school, he worked as a mountain biking guide in Southern Arizona. Sean also spends time in the classroom as a digital media instructor at Warner Pacific University.
