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Stevens Bike Park Opening!

DBR X6 RIDER

Turbo Monkey
Oh! Oh! Me, Me, ME!!!

I'm super excited! I've been waiting since Snoqualmie closed... :(
Likewise - I was seriously beginning to think I'd never ride a chairlift in this state in my lifetime. 24 more hours to cross that off my "to-do" list!!! :weee:

Quite a few of the DWBs will be there. We're packing 6-7 of us in the sprinter van and I know there's at least a couple other carpooling as well. PUMPED!!!
 

Pullshocks

Chimp
Mar 2, 2005
23
0
Not that I'm wishing for long lift lines, but I hope there is a huge turnout...something that Joel can take back to his powers that be and show that yeah, this is worth the years of effort and investment.
 

knittingfiend

Monkey
Jun 13, 2008
193
0
A tick north of Seattle
My sentiments EXACTLY! Sounds like a good turnout as well - something around 375 people. Slingshot Wookie got broke in proper today!
I don't know who Slingshot Wookie is.....but I hope he had as much fun as I did!! :thumb: :rolleyes:


I was happy to see such a big turnout, although I can't imagine what the trails must look like today, but that's not the point. Point is.....the trails are fun, and next summer is gonna be a blast! :D
 

Pullshocks

Chimp
Mar 2, 2005
23
0
I stopped by the ticket desk about 3:00 and was told 398 Saturday and 404 Sunday. The person at the sales desk said they were expecting 200 per day. Maybe that's why they had so few bike racks on the lift.

All in all, a great day. The Stevens Pass mountain bike park is a welcome addition, and I'm sure I will be up there many times next summer.

Thanks Joel, for seeing this thing through
 
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MinorThreat

Turbo Monkey
Nov 15, 2005
1,630
41
Nine Mile Falls, WA
We traveled Hwy 2 back home from B'ham yesterday and there seemed to be a TON of rigs with bikes coming back. It was cool to see; obviously a lot of pent-up demand there. Looking forward to getting over next summer.
 

jhollowell

Chimp
Sep 5, 2008
5
0
Over 400 people on both days!! I'd call that a good turn out. Big thanks to all the Stevens Pass crew that worked to make this happen. I was out there Sunday and from what i could tell there were no major issues. Even with that many people the lift lines weren't that long and there weren't really any traffic jams on the trails. I think the limited number of racks on the lifts helped keep the lines at the bottom instead of on the trails. But for a first public opening i think it went great. Great job and a big thanks to everyone that made it happen.
 

thad

Monkey
Sep 28, 2004
388
21
I went on Saturday for opening day, and was pretty disappointed.

The lift only goes up maybe 800 vertical feet or so. There are two trails, and neither is finished to the bottom, so you have to bomb fireroads at the bottom. Given how small the hill is, I have to wonder why they weren't able to complete a top to bottom run? I know the hill was snowed in until July, but that leaves 4 months of building, and I would have expected to see more rideable trail.

Slingshot Wookie was pretty fun hard blue/ mild black dh run for the first half, until you got to this weird wood lip, and then a series of little uphills. While waiting for the traffic jams on trail to disperse, I couldn't help but notice how many cool rock formations there were off trail, and wondered why the trail didn't incorporate those features more. The trail would be a pretty fun race course, if a bit short. I figure 2:00-2:15 would be a quick time.

The rock crusher trail was too wet to be worthwhile and only went halfway down the hill. Sadly, this forced all of the traffic onto SW, so that it was a gongshow of gapers on wal-mart bikes.

The lift had about half the bike racks it should have. Went chair, chair, rack, when it should have been chair, rack. There was a section of about 20 chairs with no racks. Kinda frustrating when you are standing in a 20 minute line.

Bottom line, drove 2 hours each way, got 5 runs on 1 short trail, and stood around in line all day. Shuttled the day after, drove 1 hour, got 7 runs, all over 1500ft descent, way more variety, and had a lot more fun. Trail crew needs to get busy to make it worth the drive down from Bham.
 

jeepmauler

Monkey
Mar 9, 2004
178
0
Lynnwood
My wife and I thought it was awesome all considering. She'll be getting a seasons pass for next summer for sure...I may...not sure.....the thing in my avatar takes up all my time

Good job Stevens Pass and all the peeps who helped:thumb:
 

DirtEveryDay

Turbo Monkey
Nov 24, 2003
2,692
4
Pacific North Wet
THAD-Would you have preferred it didn't open at all? It was stated that it was just a loose, early opening date. One weekend before the year's end. Sounds like they delivered exactly what they said they could! And all for $20.
It was stated that they only had two mostly-completed trails up and running, VERY limited food and beer, and even though it was only $20 for a lift to the top all day long, I was too broke to justify driving my tank down there... But will come spring! To shuttle around here and get a half dozen runs in means a full tank of gas for me... I gotta make my shuttle days count!

I guess I would just consider the weekend to be a feeler. They just wanted to see how it was gonna be received and what they need to do, sad to see someone so irritated by that...

Haha, and Yeah, Joel said it was a bunch of guys on department store bikes in over their heads...but hey, never know who'll catch the bug! We were all there once, It can only be a good thing!
 

ebxtreme

Monkey
Apr 25, 2007
195
0
Bellingham
I went on Saturday for opening day, and was pretty disappointed.
Jeez, who let in the fun police? LOL

TQ, you'd think that more folks riding Stevens would be a good thing for our trails. As you mentioned, Sunday was pretty rad and 100% gaper free. Stevens Pass, thank you from all of us in Whatcom County.....look forward to riding the trails next year!

Cheers,
EB
 

DBR X6 RIDER

Turbo Monkey
You B-ham guys are sooooooo spoiled!!! ;)
Thad's just a beast of a trail-builder, so the bar is going to be considerably high for him. Like all of us, he's entitled to his opinion(s). He'll be back and he'll get his satisfy on. Good point on the potential easing of congestion locally for you guys, EB - hope that's true! We'd much rather you guys built more new trails as opposed to having to clean up existing trails from all the (ab)use from the non-locals.

I showed up Saturday with basically zero expectations other than to shralp some corners. My ONLY grievance would be the lack of a beg/int trail right off the bat to minimize the amount of riders that were in way over their heads on Slingshot Wookie.

If they still have one tray for every six chairs next season (they said they're putting trays ahead of every chair next season) then, yes, I'm going to kind of flip out...as I'm sure many will. I'm fine with the minimal vert compared to some areas so long as they take full advantage of the terrain along that chair. While I'd love to see double the elevation they have, I'm just going with it since there's not much else chairlift-wise that close to Seattle.

It's legit. It might be a couple/few years before it's LEGIT-legit.:thumb:
 

Stevenspass

Monkey
Sep 6, 2007
103
0
Leavenworth, WA
Have no fear next summer there will be bike carriers every other chair. I just wanted to put more money into trails this summer. Also the two trails that we are riding now are not 100% completed currently but will be by the time we open next summer. We have also started a int singletrack that we are currently working on and will be ready by the start of next summer.

Hope this anwers a couple of questions. Feel free to hit me back with more.

Joel
 

knittingfiend

Monkey
Jun 13, 2008
193
0
A tick north of Seattle
Have no fear next summer there will be bike carriers every other chair. I just wanted to put more money into trails this summer. Also the two trails that we are riding now are not 100% completed currently but will be by the time we open next summer. We have also started a int singletrack that we are currently working on and will be ready by the start of next summer.

Hope this anwers a couple of questions. Feel free to hit me back with more.

Joel


Can't. Wait. :D