Over the last three years, the Hurricane Mountain Zone has seen a major increase in traffic as a result of building and fine-tuning several trails including Hurricane, Sendero, Charlie Don’t Surf, Knight’s Trail, Kandagnar and Pinball. Prior to this, the HMZ had three primary trails including Red Tail, Kettle Ridge and Cranmore Connector. In an effort to address surmounting issues including access and parking, Ride NoCo partnered with the White Mountain Trail Collective to help build a two-way, beginner trail to connect the base of Cranmore Mountain Resort to the HMZ. A great deal of funding was provided by the WMTC, and Cranmore has been gracious enough to offer parking at its base area. The Cranmore-Kettle beginner trail — Trail 1 or the temporarily named Lower Flank Trail seen on Trailforks — was recently completed. And, it is serving its purpose: to solve parking issues at the water tower on Hurricane Mountain Rd. and to resolve access issues on private land around Kandahar Lane. We are excited to see how these positive changes help improve our relationship with nearby landowners and help us better serve our community of riders.
When it was completed, Trail 1/Lower Flank Trail brought riders to an intermediate/expert level trail when it intersected with Lower Kettle Ridge. Therefore, it was a part of the 2020 projects plan to create a new corridor that is accessible to Novice riders. The new corridor is designed to handle heavy, two-way traffic, as this section serves as both the outlet for Red Tail, Sendero and Hurricane riders to climb back up to the Trail 1/LFT and for Trail 1/LFT riders to enter the Hurricane Mountain Zone. Unfortunately, it was necessary to utilize an existing section of the lower Kettle Ridge trail in order to create this new corridor.
With the completion of Trail 1/LFT and a window of opportunity to wrap up the entire Trail 1/LFT and Lower Kettle Ridge update before winter, trail crews advanced down Lower Kettle Ridge in the last week.
Looking ahead to 2021, our priority will be to relocate the section of Lower Kettle Ridge that was lost to the new corridor. In order to accomplish this reroute, our trail crew will be working with the original trail builder of Kettle Ridge to preserve the natural hand built and technically challenging character of the section of trail that previously existed. Trail 2 will be a single track, intermediate descent trail with natural and machine built features. We are excited for more additions to the HMZ and are so grateful once again to have the WMTC assist with funding on the project.