Kettle Fest 2023

Check out this great article in Craft MTN magazine about the Kettlefest a few years ago!

Join Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance and the Evergreen East chapter for 5 days of epic riding and camping at Kettle Crest in Colville National Forest! If you can't join for the entire time, come for as long as works for you. Folks with kids, the campground is a great spot for the little ones to ride around.

Enjoy some of Washington’s best backcountry singletrack in a remote, alpine setting. In an annual tradition, riders from all across the region including Seattle, Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, Bellingham, and B.C. converge to hang out, experience awesome trails and give back to the area with a day devoted to trail work. Most of the rides have a healthy dose of climbing, but there are lots of great ride options, so come join us for another awesome year at Kettle Crest!

More details to follow, but we'll plan to do one full day of trail work on Saturday, swimming in the Kettle River, swapping stories around the campfire over a cold beer and, of course, riding some epic alpine singletrack.

Please note there is no cell phone service at the campground or where we will be riding. Group rides will be leaving around 9 am each morning (this varies based on what folks are feeling). Note: the groups rides are not scheduled (9am is just the usual time people tend to start gearing up to go out and ride), the format is very casual. 

Directions: 

We'll be camping at the Jungle Hill Campground, which is between the towns of Republic and Kettle Falls. We have the whole campground reserved so feel free to use any empty site when you arrive. Find the Google Map of the campfound here.

What to bring:

• A willingness to get dirty!
• Camping Equipment - 
  • Tent, pad, sleeping bag, light, chair, warm clothing, and water filter
• Water, food, snacks and a pack to haul it in.
• Work boots or tough hiking boots (sturdy footwear)
• Rain gear, layers, work attire aka: clothes that look superb when dirty!
• Safety glasses and work gloves if you have them
• A warm change of clothes after a fun filled day

Evergreen will provide:

• All the tools
• Work gloves if you would like them
• A few snacks if you need them

Ride options

While our ride schedule is usually made ad-hoc, here's a sample schedule of what KettleFest usually looks like (note this is not an accurate schedule, just an example):

Jungle Hill

1. Easy Option: 10 miles, 1300 ft. climbing, 2500 ft. descending
2. Medium Option: 14 miles, 2300 ft. climbing, 3300 ft. descending
3. Hard Option: 18 miles, 3600 ft. climbing/descending

For the easy and medium options, we shuttle up to the top of Sherman Pass and start up the Kettle Crest trail. The hard option starts from the campground with about 1300ft of climbing to get up to Sherman Pass. After climbing on the Kettle Crest there is an optional detour to Columbia Mountain which has an awesome 360-degree view. For the easy option, riders can turn around after Columbia Mountain and descend all the way back to the campground. Otherwise, riders will continue climbing and descending along the Kettle Crest until the top of Jungle Hill where the payoff awaits….

Old Stage to Midnight Ridge to Kettle Crest to Jungle Hill

1. Easy Option: Old Stage/Midnight Ridge loop, 10 miles, ~2,850 ft. climbing/descending
2. Medium Option: Old Stage/Midnight Ridge loop + Kettle Crest to Jungle Hill, 17 miles, ~5,000 ft. climbing/descending
3. Hard Option: Pedal from Jungle Hill Campground to Old Stage/Midnight Ridge loop + Kettle Crest to Jungle Hill, ~30 miles, ~7,000 ft. climbing

Up West Side of Old Stage and descend the scenic Midnight Ridge trail. Up and over Copper Butte (elev. ~7100') around Scar Mountain and then up to Wapaloosie and a fun descent to Jungle Hill and the Jungle Hill Campground. Views go for miles when up on the Crest.

Upper/Lower Taylor Ridge

Another full day of riding. Those intersted in making the drive out to Taylor Ridge (about 1 hour) can go out to do that. Taylor Ridge is a 18 mile ride with 2,600ft of climbing and 5,600ft of descending. Those that want to stay nearer to camp can do another varieation of the rides listed above.

 

 

Saturday, July 22:  Trail work day and Dinner in Kettle Falls

TBD

On Friday July 21, there will be a Trail Maintenance Trail School: This will begin at 9am in the Jungle Creek Campground, and then we will move out to a trail after to do some hands on learning!

In this class we go over the following principles:

• Basic tool and work safety. 

• Trail construction and soil types. 

• Drainage maintenance.

• Brushing and clearing

• Leaf blowing and raking. 

• Basic stewardship.

 

More details on the way soon!

If you have any questions or concerns about Kettle Fest, please reach out to Brandon Lester at

 

Hope to see you out there!