New MTB Trails Planned for Saranac Lake, Keene & Wilmington
The Barkeaters are at it again this summer with three particularly exciting projects. Phil Brown has the scoop.
With spring just a few weeks away, at least according to the calendar, I talked to Glenn Glover about the Barkeater Trails Alliance’s plans for 2025. It turns out there’s a lot on the nonprofit organization’s plate.
Glenn, who is BETA’s executive director, said major projects are in the works at Mount Pisgah in Saranac Lake, the East Branch Community Trails in Keene, and Hardy Road in Wilmington.
Mount Pisgah
BETA and Saranac Lake have contracted with Luke Peduzzi, owner of Peduzzi Trails, to come up with a plan to improve the trail system on Mount Pisgah, which is owned by the village.
BETA has built a number of bike trails on Pisgah, including a popular flow trail called The Cure that has sustained erosion. All are rated intermediate or expert. Glover said BETA wants to create beginner-friendly trails on the mountain, including an easier climbing trail.
“We’re not complaining about Pisgah,” he said. “This is a way of optimizing it so it better serves the community.”
Peduzzi is expected to begin inspecting the trails after the snow melts and hand in a report by the end of May. He will consult stakeholders, including local bikers, to come up with recommendations, which might include rehabilitating, rerouting or decommissioning existing trails as well as adding new trails. BETA then will confer with village officials to decide what steps to take next. Major improvements will not be undertaken anytime soon.
In a separate project, BETA will build a trail this spring from the former Adirondack Cottage Sanitarium on Park Avenue to the Pisgah network, providing safe and convenient access to the bike trails. It will be about 0.4 miles long and gain 150 feet in elevation. Most likely, the access trail will connect to the NatSki bike trail, but that will depend on Peduzzi’s recommendation.
Glover said BETA will lay out the access trail after the snow melts. He expects the actual construction to take only a few weeks. Cure Cottage Development, the owners of the former sanitarium, has signed off on the project.
East Branch Community Trails
Riders will have up to four new trails to ride at BETA’s mountain-bike network in Keene. Peduzzi Trails actually finished one of them last year, but it was not opened to the public. This spring, it will be.
Once this new descent trail is available, bikers will no longer have to ride down the climbing trail. From the small loop at the end of the climbing trail, bikers will able to descend partway down the mountain to rejoin the climbing trail, ascend a few hundred yards, and then continue their descent via Downriver--an amazing flow trail with huge berms and swooping curves.
Last year, Peduzzi finished a big loop off the aforementioned small loop. This spring, BETA will open an enduro trail leading downhill from the big loop to Downriver. It will be built partly by machine and partly by hand, featuring big berms, optional jumps, and a rock garden.
Glover said the enduro trail, rated expert, will offer a different experience from Downriver, one that tests a variety of skills. “People love the machine-built flow, but we don’t want a mountain full of that,” he remarked.
Finally, BETA plans to expand the East Branch network farther up the mountain. Tentative plans call for one trail to climb to a height of land and another to descend from it. The descent trail would be rated expert. These trails are projected to open before Lake Placid hosts the World Cup mountain-bike races in early October. (It’s possible only trail will be built instead of two.)
Most of the East Branch trails don’t have names. Hence, I’ve referred to them as “the climbing trail,” “the small loop,” “the big loop,” and so forth. BETA plans to ask the public to suggest names, ideally with a common theme, but the organization will make the final decisions. Stay tuned for details.
BETA plans to hold a cookout in June to celebrate the East Branch trails, which have been built by Peduzzi and volunteers. State and local officials, among others, will be invited. The date has not been fixed.
Hardy Road
The bike trails off Hardy Road in Wilmington are among the most popular in the BETA galaxy, but Glover said the time has come to assess conditions with an eye toward rehabilitation or rerouting. BETA wants to make the trails more sustainable to minimize the need for maintenance in the future. BETA will conduct the review this year.
BETA has no plans to add trails to the existing Hardy network, but there is potential for new trails on the adjoining 595-acre Four Peaks Tract, which the state Department of Environmental Conservation acquired last summer.
BETA expects to hire Trail Solutions--a partner of the International Mountain Bicycling Association--to prepare recommendations for hiking and bike trails that will link to the Hardy Road network. One aim is to create a trail connection between the hamlets of Jay and Wilmington. DEC must approve any trails built on the tract.
BETA also plans to finish a climbing trail at the Blueberry Hill network in Elizabethtown.
