Mt. Bike Skills Park in TD latest adition as Parks pump up recreation for kids and adults
It takes a team - Northern Wasco County Parks and Rec. Director Scott Baker shows off the new Mountain Bike Skills Park near the aquatic center in The Dalles earlier this week. He said fast action from the Parks Board made this latest edition possible. And there is more to come as the volunteers are pushing for more recreation and places for kids and adults. Outdoor activity - whatever you choose it to be - is a proven stress reliever and quality-of-life add-on.
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, OR, July 1, 2023
Green, Blue, or Black?
Those are your choices in choosing your trail.
And choose wisely, rockhopper. Your body is depending on you. Your bike could be bending on you.
Bail before you endo into that chunder!
Translation: The Dalles just got a whole lot funner - yeah, funner - it's a word. Merriam got over it, and you can too. Lol. Roll with me here brothers and sisters.
It’s a great word to describe the new Mountain Bike Skills Park that offers three levels of difficulty. It offers beginner, intermediate and expert levels with chutes, drops and brown pow to build your skills to prepare for the logs on Post Canyon trails on the west side of Hood River.
I tried it. Ripped some skin off my thumb holding the phone for a video. But otherwise: Good!!!
The Park while 99 percent complete is still lacking signage so riders need to be aware to flow in a counterclockwise direction and keep your head on a swivel.
“It blows my mind,” said Northern Wasco County Parks and Recreation Director Scott Baker on Tuesday, June 27, noting the completion of the park came sooner than scheduled. It’s great to be able to “create something special” for kids and adults.
The park was constructed on the rocky basalt just behind The Dalles Aquatic Center, 602 W. 2nd St. It is wedged between Safeway and Mill Creek. You access it from the small parking lot behind the skate park.
It was built using the basalt boulders already on site by contractor Gary Paasch, who has mountain biking skills camps named School of Send.
Cost to build: $100,000. Baker said the entire project was funded with Parks and Recreation money.
And it got pushed up on the schedule by the Parks Board after a major fire last year burned through the area where the park sits due to an illegal cooking fire on Aug. 3, 2023, threatening multiple homes. The want for the park was identified in local surveys in 2018 and 2019, Baker said.
Scorched earth - fire last August swept through the drylands that are now part of a Mountain Bike Skills Park behind The Dalles Aquatic Center. This fire prompted construction.
The idea was to develop the park to create positive behavior in the space.
MORE TO COME, PUMP, PUTT, PUTT
And it is just one piece of the larger puzzle of offering locals and kids especially additional recreational choices that are easily accessible.
Parks and Recreation will also be starting on a pump track adjacent to the skate park in weeks to come. It will be complete sometime this fall. Check out CCCNews’ story on it here.
As we walked the new Mountain Bike Skills Park, Baker also looked over at the plateau and grassy areas surrounding the splash park nearby.
He said a miniature golf course is planned for the site.
But that is a long way off?
It might come quicker than you think, he said.
