Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance

Seattle, Washington
Words by John Kennedy
Photos by Reid Morth

If you were mountain biking twenty years ago in the greater Seattle area, you probably caught the news circulating throughout the riding community: “Cougar Mountain is being closed to mountain bikers.” At that point, mountain biking was the relative newcomer within the outdoor recreation crowd. And the Cougar Mountain closure was a wakeup call. It was easy to see how this new sport could quickly evaporate if riders lost one access battle after another. Soon, there could be no place for mountain bikers in Washington.

After a pivotal Cougar Mountain community meeting, local mountain bikers came to one common conclusion: we need to get organized and we need a unified voice. That day in 1989, the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club was formed to fight the Cougar Mountain closure, and to protect the interests of mountain bikers throughout the area.

Sadly, after fighting a hard a battle, Cougar Mountain was still closed to riders. This only fueled the desire and determination of local riders who believed in their cause and were determined to fight. One thing was clear: mountain bikers were simply misunderstood and not accepted by other outdoor recreational groups.

Fast forward twenty years and we’re still fighting the same battle… sort of. We’re just smarter now about how to approach the constantly changing landscape of access for mountain bikers. BBTC has morphed significantly in that time, including being renamed the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance. It has grown into a well-established organization, with a strong track record of advocacy, trail building, maintenance, and rider education. Public agencies, municipalities, landowners, and other user groups recognize us as a central voice for mountain bikers in Puget Sound and Washington State. And all of our successes and the many contributions of mountain bikers over the years have put us in a position to be an even stronger, more effective organization in the years to come. But it all still comes down to advocacy.

Evergreen’s Advocacy program addresses a range of issues including trail access, creation, and maintenance as well as sustainable land management, liability on public lands, funding for public lands, and land designation. Most importantly, the Evergreen Advocacy Program fosters direct action by the mountain bike community through letter writing, professional and grassroots attendance at public meetings, and other avenues in order to make the essential connection between our constituency and key officials and stakeholders in the decision making process.  We’ve learned that if we’re at the table from the get-go, we’re far less likely to get caught off guard by seemingly sudden trail closures, and have the opportunity to influence the decision-making process.

Outside of advocacy, EMBA supports a few other influential programs that continue to keep us being invited back to the table as knowledgeable, responsible trail stewards.

Trails Program

The purpose of the Evergreen Trails Program is to build and maintain high quality, sustainable mountain bike trails throughout Washington State. We hope to foster a lifelong ethic of stewardship within the mountain bike community for our environmental and trail resources.

Where as the Evergreen Advocacy Program works to establish policies and land use agreements that result in greater trail access, construction, and maintenance, the Trails Program puts boots on the ground to ensure high quality, sustainable construction and maintenance of mountain bike trails on public and private lands throughout Washington State.  Most importantly, our trail construction and maintenance plans are made possible through strong partnerships with public agencies and private landowners.

Rider Education Program

We’ve also learned that if we want high-quality trails, we need educated, skilled riders on them as well. The Evergreen Rider Education Program offers high quality, professional mountain bike instruction for riders of all skill levels, from beginner to advanced.  We offer specific classes that focus on basic and intermediate skills that advance our members’ abilities across cross-country, freeride, and downhill disciplines, as well as a core curriculum that emphasizes safety, trail ethics, and environmental stewardship. The rider education program reaches a broad audience throughout the greater Puget Sound Area, as well as Washington State, with a particular focus on kids, teens, and women.  Ultimately, the goal is to foster skilled, confident, knowledgeable, ethical, and environmentally conscious riders of all ages and skill levels.

Grassroots Community Program

We are constantly reminded of the tremendous value that all mountain bikers bring to the organization. At its core, EMBA is rider and volunteer-powered. We need volunteers in order to expand our bandwidth and success. Our current capacity can’t support all of the opportunities that are out there to better the mountain bike community.

And even when we lack people-power, we still have knowledge to help other groups build their bases as well. Part of Evergreen’s Grassroots Program aims to assist smaller groups, clubs, or individuals advance their own projects by providing resources, know how, and agency connections. This kind of support ranges from technical guidance to design solutions and occasional hands-on help. Evergreen has been in dialogue with the Whatcom Trails Co-Op (WTC) for a number of months now, and sees great value and potential in organizations like WTC.

These programs are really the heart of our organization. It’s through sustained advocacy, taking care of the land we recreate on, and facilitating the how to and ethics of mountain biking that we continue to fulfill our mission to create and protect sustainable mountain biking opportunities in Washington State.

This is a new era in mountain biking, when the mountain bike community is coming together with a stronger voice. Our sport is largely gaining acceptance and being recognized for the inherent goodness that it is. We now have a seat at the table as Evergreen has made valiant efforts to engage other user groups and build strong relationships with them based on our similarities, rather than our differences. Images of riders are abundant in advertising and marketing these days and that which was largely viewed as extreme is now being considered mainstream. It’s taken us 20 years to get here… so where do we go now?

Evergreen is currently involved with a myriad of projects and access opportunities in partnership with various public agencies from city and state parks departments, to the Department of Natural Resources and the US Forest Service. This level of interaction with a wide variety of influential land managers and policymakers is in large part thanks to the Colonnade.

I-5 Colonnade Park was the first park of its kind in the world. The project was initially proposed by Simon Lawton of Fluidride nearly twelve years ago. Simon’s vision was to transform a desolate wasteland of a city space into a mountain bike park for the community. As the concept caught on, Simon summoned Evergreen to design and build the facility. We worked with Seattle Parks and Recreation, Urban Sparks, and the Eastlake City Council for a number of years to get the project off the ground. Just imagine having local city officials nod and murmur approval as you show them the design for a six-foot drop into a huge berm you want to build—right in the middle of a city park under the freeway—and the future possibilities for Evergreen begin to unfold. The success of the Colonnade was staggering and has enabled us to leverage other opportunities in its wake.

Next up: Duthie Hill Park. Duthie is located on the Issaquah Plateau about 20 minutes east of Seattle, and is a 120-acre facility managed by King County. The County approached Evergreen as Colonnade took off. Talk about having a seat at a table—instead of being told that a favorite local spot was being closed to bikers, we were proactively asked to create a brand new one. Unlike the dry moonlike environment of Colonnade—there’s not much good dirt under the freeway and we had to truck quite a lot of it in and figure out how to keep it moist over time—Duthie is back in the woods, right where we like it. On dirt. It will feature a vast array of options from a beginner level trail with features for progression, to a competitive, spectator-friendly cross-country loop, as well as a variety of big hit lines being built by local groups with flavorful names like the Dirtcorps, Fluidride, the Dirty White Boys. We’re even going to get a DH line built by World Cup racer, and Issaquah local, Luke Strobel. Duthie will be the local mountain bike event Mecca because of its variety of trail options and a convenient 2-acre clearing in the middle that serves as a casual gathering spot but will also be perfect for race and event support.

But Evergreen is not all parks and stunts. There’s also a large segment of our constituency concerned about backcountry access—they’re after peaceful, serene landscapes that rejuvenate the soul and offer escape from the urban grind. The Olallie State Park and South Fork Snoqualmie projects bring it within an hour drive of Downtown Seattle.

For over 15 years, the Olallie/Southfork project has been in the works but it wasn’t until recently that dirt began to move. We’ve partnered with the Mountains to Sound Greenway—a local organization that focuses on road to trail conversion—who is laying the foundation for the first 3 to 6 miles of this larger trail network. Eventually, a 20-mile forest road system will be converted to trail, and will and hook in to the planned Mt. Washington mountain bike trail in Olallie State Park. The entire trail system will probably take ten years to build, and additional sections of road will continue to be turned into singletrack as funding is secured.

For a large chunk of our constituency, a quick escape is more convenient, be it close local spins on a Saturday morning or an after-work night ride on a weekday. The Paradise Valley Conservation Area in Snohomish was a treasured local favorite, lost for 6 years and brought back to life by the dedication and hard work of a few local riders and an organization that could actually organize it all. Paradise has eleven pleasurable miles of varied singletrack all built by the hands of EMBA volunteers who were passionate about the potential to reopen a beloved local facility open to bikes.

You might say that after twenty years and all of the above successes, times have changed. But then again, if you are a mountain biker today, you may follow other headlines: “The status of trails at Mt. St. Helens is in under review,” or “The Kettle Crest Area in the Colville National Forest may receive Wilderness designation,” and “NW Timber Trail on Tiger Mountain is being temporarily closed and harvested.” Landowners and agencies continue to decommission unauthorized trails around the country rather than work in accord with local trail builders and clubs to address the burgeoning needs surrounding the freeride and downhill communities.

In addition, for every mile of trail that Evergreen maintains, there are many more throughout the state that are not maintained and that need annual or major repair. And each year, new mountain bikers join the ranks, looking for ways to improve riding experiences, expand access, and hone in on their own riding skills. Evergreen is there to meet them.

After 20 years, Evergreen has accomplished a great deal. But clearly, there is much work to be done.