Darrington - Skills Park
The Lower Mountain Skills Park is now open. 5 miles of cross country and freeride trails for beginners through expert riders.
The upper mountain project is currently being constructed by DNR, Evergreen, and the local community.
Info
Lower Mountain Skills Park is now open!
Evergreen is partnering with the State of Washington and DNR to turn Darrington's North Mountain into a mountain bike destination. This is the potential for a showcase trail system that brings economic development to the town of Darrington and has the potential to be one of Washington's premier trail systems.
The lower mountain skills park is now open with 5 miles of trails with jumps, skill features, and lower elevation loops designed for absolute beginner up to expert riders.
The skills park will connect to a large trail system with intermediate to expert level downhill trails. Multiple trails will be shuttleable and there is an old fire lookout at the summit. These upper trails will be up to 18 miles with 3200 feet of vert. This is going to be a large and varied trail system. It's going to be good!
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Ride Reports
Sorry that I'm putting another ride report in for the Skills Park but it has the best draining trails in Western Washington! The snow is almost gone so the dirt is wonderful. Just needs one more day to dry. Sing this report to the Back Street Boys song in the title....
Because of all the cold weather we've had, there is still the 2 inches of snow on the Skills Park trails. Above the skills park, there is six or more inches on the higher mountain. So until this weekend's rains wash some of it away, it is marginally rideable at the skills park, but not hero. Trai...
I went out to Darrington again since those are the best draining trails but I was worried about the new snow. I found that there was only 2" total in the Skills Park and very ridable. There was a truck stuck in the road just above the Crosscut trailhead but should be gone by the time you read thi...
Just bought a new Specialized Enduro Comp and took it to the Darrington Skills Park to test it and fine tune it. Sing this report to Def Leppard's "Animal".
A wild ride, over stony ground
Such a lust for bikes, great weather comes to town
We are the 2-wheeled ones, on a swift de...
This morning I took the Levo to the end of the Whitehorse in Darrington to begin a pre-ride of a tour I will be bringing a scout troop on in the near future.
For new MTB folks and famil...
Drove the truck up to the bottom of the Skyline trail to see if the new snow this week was minimal and the higher, trail bottoms were still ridable. After starting at the bottom, the snow became 5-6" thick and Lower Skyline wasn't ridable at all. I went back down to the Skills Park and met up wit...
Last week I went to visit some friends down in Bend, and a cousin near Portland. I was going to pull the trigger in June for an Ebike, but since Specialized had the 25% off sale, I bought a new one while in Portland. After riding my Stumpjumper for 8 years, I will be riding a Turbo Levo Comp Carb...
A friend and I took our gravel bikes to the North Mountain skills area thi...
My full suspension is still recovering from usage in the bike shop so I took the gravel to Darrington and parked at Whitehorse Park. I rode to the skills park and went down Logger before going all the way around North Mountain and returning on SR-530 back to the car. Logger was hero and the road...
Made many runs on Logger and then Faller for fun, and then High Lead and Hooktender for more fun. The Hooktender tree should still be removed even though there is a ride around. The technical route is still OK but really isn't a fluid route now. My run down Millwright was immediately stopped afte...
Was hoping that the snow had melted in Darrington enough to get a couple runs on the Skills Park's trails but there is still >6" of snow on the trails in most places. The road, even though plowed a bit, isn't good enough for normal vehicles yet and there are only one or two places to go by onc...
This morning's break in the rain gave me a good chance to get a weekday ride in and I haven't done the lower trails since the beginning of the year. This place has always been good after rainy days since it drains well and the canopy is so thick where it needs to be. Even after convergence zone d...
Had a good early morning running the east side trails at the skills park for about an hour before going higher up on the mountain. The trails are not muddy and have only a couple of windblown fir bows here and there that you can ride over. I cleared a broken up trunk on Faller but the rest of the...
Took a friend to the skills park today and had a good time showing him the area. We toured the trails and then out to the Whitehorse and back. Trails had about an inch of frost but the traction otherwise was solid. I took my buddy up to the summit gate to show him the rest being cut. The road sho...
Wanted to explore a little more outside of the skills park so I parked at the power lines east of Giles Rd and started climbing up the southeastern flank of North Mountain on a old road and then newly cut connector to North Mountain Rd. After reaching the main road, I went down to the skills park...
Spent early Sunday morning exploring the whole skills park and enjoyed every trail. The trail makers and volunteers all did a great job and signage was very well done. Easy trails west of the road and experienced trails to the east. My favorite trail was the roller coaster feel to Logger and the...
Was 12 degF this morning in Darrington and 6-8" of snow with a crust. I figured traction would be good but the snow was too soft still. The road had melt/freeze ice in the double track so after 2 miles in, it was too icy and downhill was treacherous. Went back to the car via a r...