Ponderosa State Park covers about 1,500 acres of a forested peninsula jutting out into the waters of Payette Lake. With the neighboring resort town of McCall boasting year-round recreation, Ponderosa State Park has become one of the most popular state parks in all of Idaho.
But growing popularity has led to crowded trails and some conflict between user groups. To spread some of that traffic out, the Central Idaho Mountain Bike Association (CIMBA) hopes to add three new trails to the state park.
Ponderosa State Park
McCall sits on the southern end of Payette Lake. Immediately to the northwest is Brundage Mountain, with lift-accessed mountain biking on the western slopes. To the east, the renowned Brundage to Bear Basin trail connects the mountain to McCall. Along with two connecting trails from the summit, this summit-to-town connection drops nearly 3,000 feet over 12 miles.
“Our flagship zone is a small bike area called Bear Basin, which is just outside of McCall,” CIMBA Executive Director Tom Helmer told us. The trail connecting the summit drops into the Bear Basin zone, where you can further connect singletrack into town.
Bear Basin and Brundage Mountain keep the northwest of McCall well-covered as far as trails are concerned. However, immediately to the northeast, singletrack is relatively sparse.
But visitors aren’t. Ponderosa State Park attracts locals and tourists alike. While exact visitation numbers aren’t listed, the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation claims Ponderosa as one of the state’s most popular parks.
For those looking to explore Ponderosa on a mountain bike, currently, options are few and far between. Only three trails allow bikes, and, as Helmer told us, these are multi-use trails.
“Huckleberry Trail is kind of a loop that goes out in the peninsula in the middle of the lake, and then comes back,” he said. “That is a fun trail, but it’s getting busier and busier. There are tons of people on it all the time.”
Though “multi-use” covers the entire spectrum of trail users, conflict between user groups has grown in recent years. CIMBA didn’t report any major incidents; rather, it was just an acknowledgment that all user groups would be better served with a bit more space. And, as the most recent user group lobbying for trail access, mountain bikers may feel like they are using hiking trails, rather than the other way around.
While Helmer mentioned that official conversations proposing new trails at Ponderosa State Park are more recent, the idea stretches back more than a handful of years. Longtime CIMBA members have been talking about and pushing for more trails at Ponderosa for quite some time, and now, it looks like that time has come.
Three new trails
Working with the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation, CIMBA proposed three new trails, each with its own phase, over the next few years. If all three phases of the new plan are approved, roughly four miles of singletrack will be added to Ponderosa State Park.
That is nearly a 50% increase from what is already there.
While CIMBA would love these four new miles to be exclusively for mountain biking, they haven’t yet received approval. Regardless, the trails will be purpose-built for mountain bikes, with the hope of further separating user groups.
They are also making at least one of the new trails adaptive-friendly. Phase one of the project consists of an intermediate-level trail running parallel to portions of the existing Huckleberry trail. Helmer said it leans much more to the flowier end of the spectrum, rather than tech. Think pedal-flow, where it isn’t too difficult to carry and maintain speed climbing or descending.
The first two new trails will also be more XC-oriented, similar to the existing trails. Although Ponderosa State Park has a few hundred feet of elevation gain, additional trail corridors are somewhat limited, given that it is a peninsula.
CIMBA anticipates starting construction on this new blue trail either this summer or fall. They hope to follow it up with phase two of the plan, adding a green trail. Helmer said that he expects this one to also be adaptive-friendly, with less elevation gains and losses than the blue trail.
Looking even further into the future, CIMBA also wants to build an advanced trail to provide an option for all skill levels. “We want to have different features on it to make it a black trail, like rock gardens and different types of things,” Helmer said. “But we don’t have the final design for those yet. And a lot of times, you know, you don’t really know until you’re actually building them.”
The folks at CIMBA will be spearheading the project. Helmer mentioned a handful of folks in the organization who are more than capable, including CIMBA’s Trails and Outreach Coordinator, Mason Kennedy. Kennedy and another board member will take on the build, both having experience building trails at bike parks in the Pacific Northwest.
CIMBA will use machines to lay the groundwork, followed by a crew of volunteers to hand-finish the trail.
When will the first new trail open?
“We want to let it sit over the winter before we open it so it can compact it, get some moisture on it, and harden things off,” Helmer told us. If all goes according to plan and the crew can plug away at 40 hours each week, Helmer anticipates an eight-week build time.
CIMBA has its fingers crossed that more funding will come in to support phase two of the plan, with shovels hitting the dirt in 2027. Helmer said that he has applied for around $100,000 in grants and hopes to hear back soon. CIMBA also received a donation from the RJ Sabala Foundation, a local non-profit supporting youths and athletics in McCall.
The donation lines up perfectly with one of CIMBA’s goals for the new trails at Ponderosa State Park.
“So we want to make sure that we’re encouraging more people to mountain bike, right? That’s my job,” Helmer said. “And make sure people are having fun.”
Know about a new trail project we should cover? Whether you’re breaking ground on the next must-ride destination or putting the finishing touches on a neighborhood flow trail, we want to hear about it. Drop us a line at [email protected] with high-quality photos of your build, plus details like trail mileage, location, difficulty, and what makes it special. We’re always on the hunt for the next great trail story, and there’s a good chance your project could be featured in an upcoming article.
0 Comments