Northwoods Trails approaches completion of rehab, new trails
Having already proved itself as a major tourist attraction for Hot Springs, Northwoods Trails is nearing the end of a rehabilitation-expansion project that will increase the system by just over 2.5 miles, to more than 30 miles of worldclass mountain biking trails.
Located at 300 Pineland Drive, the trails system includes Green (beginners), Blue (intermediate) and Black (advanced) single-track, multi-track, flow trails, jump lines and the Lucky 13 expert section.
Northwoods Trails Coordinator Traci Berry said Rogue Trails, the Rogers-based designer and builder of the trails system, should complete the newest additions by mid-January and bikers, hikers and trail runners are all welcome. Two of the three trails have already been unofficially completed, though they have yet to be named.
The two sister trails, one green and one blue, are located north of Bethel Lake and on the northwest side of Dillon Lake, both connecting Bearcat Pass to Sanderson Pass, she said.
“We’ll have a blue and a green bidirectional trail that will be on the west side of Dillon Lake, which is the middle lake out at Waterworks (Mountain Bike Trail),” she said. “The blue trail ended up being up being about 1.2 miles long and the green trail is around 0.8 miles long. And so we got about 2 miles of new trail on the west side of Dillon Lake that basically connects the bottom lake to the top lake.”
When the Hot Springs Utilities Department installed a new bridge, Rogue was able to take advantage of it to add trail and connect the trailhead to the top
“Keeping up 30-plus miles of trail isn’t a small feat. Doing it a little bit at a time gives us an opportunity to kind of plan the maintenance through the added trail and to gauge what it’s going to take for us to keep it a world-class trail system.” — Northwoods Trails Coordinator Traci Berry
dam, Berry said, so now “we can ride basically kind of a loop around that middle lake.”
The city installed a new bridge below Dillon Dam and a 300-by-10-foot bridge across the Sanderson Lake Dam. The connectivity to the west side of the Waterworks lakes will lead in to Phase 2 planning of the Northwoods Project.
“The last trail that they’re working on will be a green bidirectional trail that will run from — and I guess you kind of have to be familiar with the trail systems and know the area — but it’ll be on the opposite side of lake (Dillon) on the east side where we already have a trail. It will drop below Cats Meow (Mountain Bike Trail) from Hub O to Hub T and it will be bidirectional as well. So now we’ll have almost a 3-mile loop, green loop.”
Rogue Trails has been onsite since Oct. 4, completing the rehabilitation of the flow trails, with the majority happening on the Black Diamond downhill jumpline — Lucky 13.
Visit Hot Springs announced, last summer, a new effort to rehabilitate the existing portions of Hot Springs’ Northwoods Trail System to mark the first step in expanding the complex in the northern section of the city.
The project is supported by a $175,000 grant from the Walton Family Foundation, which helps cover the cost of the trail rehabilitation and three new trails. A portion of the grant funds will also be used to help fund Phase 2 of the design plan by the International Mountain Bicycling Association.
“It feels really good,” Berry said of how the project is going. “The plan with Waterworks and the Northwoods Trails is to eventually have 40-plus miles of trail on the Waterworks property. And with Phase 1, we ended up with 16 and a half miles of trail, which includes the Pullman Trail that happened just after Phase 1. But since then, we’ve been able to open some gravel roads out there, which has given us a little more mileage. And then with the addition of the Sanderson Bridge and building these three new trails that now puts us at Waterworks, just over 20 miles of trail.”
Berry said they are putting special emphasis on the quality of the trail system, noting the importance of keeping it properly maintained. This, she notes, takes time.
“It’s like we’re biting off just a little bit at a time to reach that goal,” she said. “And it feels really good because, you know, I originally think they had planned on this being maybe a two-phase project but once we got on the ground out there and started maintaining and working with Phase 1, we realized that really, probably the best way to do this is to do a little bit at a time in order for us to maintain it properly.”
IMBA built the world-class trail system and Berry said they also rely on volunteer help in addition to staff.
“Keeping up 30-plus miles of trail isn’t a small feat,” she said. “Doing it a little bit at a time gives us an opportunity to kind of plan the maintenance through the added trail and to gauge what it’s going to take for us to keep it a world-class trail system. Because having several miles is great, but if you can’t keep it up, then it ends up just becoming not really used and grown over and things like that. I mean, that’s millions of dollars that you’ve put into something that just ends up being a waste if that makes sense.”
Taking a step-by-step approach will also allow them to better serve the public, she said, noting they are seeing a lot of people come out who are at the beginner level as well as a lot more youth and even older riders and having more Green trails will “benefit a good number of our trail users.”
A ribbon-cutting and official opening will be announced soon, Berry said, depending on weather and COVID-19 status.