A legendary downhill race track in Alberta has been brought back to life. The Baseline Mountain Biking Club (BMBC) secured $115,000 in grant funding to rebuild the Canada Cup trail — a track that hosted a Canadian national DH race series in the mid-90s — and the work was completed earlier this year.
Baseline Mountain, in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, is known for its steep, gnarly trails. Sadly, once the race series left in the late 90s, many forgot about the riding on the mountain. The rebuild represents a major milestone for the trail stewardship group, which formed 10 years ago to protect the mountain’s trails from logging operations.
Baseline Mountain hosted the Canada Cup DH series in the mid-’90s
In the early ’90s, riders started scratching trails into the mountainside.
“It was kind of like the steeper, the gnarlier you could go, the better,” Rory Johnson told us. Johnson is the founder and current Secretary of BMBC. He noted that Baseline Mountain rises to 6,000 feet above sea level and maintains a fairly steep grade the entire way down.
At least, if trail builders wanted to keep a steep grade, the option was certainly there. Many of the trails at Baseline drop over 1,000 feet or more in roughly a mile.
Along with the steep grade, the terrain is also rough and rocky, with tight singletrack squeezing riders through trees as they descend. Basically, Baseline Mountain wasn’t, and still isn’t, for the faint of heart. The majority of trails, then and now, lean heavily toward advanced.
In the mid-to-late 90s, this created an ideal venue for DH racing. After hosting the Canada Cup series for several years, the race organizers decided that the host mountains had to provide chairlift access, according to Johnson. “So it kind of left and [Baseline] was forgotten about.”
BMBC formed to protect the trails from logging
While the national DH racing spotlight had moved on, a core group of locals hadn’t forgotten about Baseline Mountain’s gnarly trails. Forestry operations didn’t forget the mountain, either. A handful of years after the Canada Cup left, logging rumors surfaced, which would have effectively shut down the trails.
Since Baseline Mountain is on Crown Land (Canada’s public land), one of the few ways to protect existing trails would be to establish an official trail stewardship organization. This is precisely what Johnson did 10 years ago with the founding of BMBC.
Right away, BMBC began restoring the historic trails at Baseline and hosting events, including an annual poker rally and a membership drive. People started coming out of the woodwork.
At the first poker rally, Johnson shared that they were ecstatic when 20-30 people showed up. The next event saw participation more than double. The following year’s poker rally attracted 140 riders. The year after that, BMBC hosted more than 200 participants.
As people remembered Baseline Mountain, momentum was building. One thing Johnson and BMBC still had on their agenda was to restore the Canada Cup trail to its former glory.
To restore such an iconic DH track, however, BMBC knew it had to be done properly.
The club secured $115,000 to rebuild the historic Canada Cup trail
“I’m no expert at paperwork or anything else like that. I’ve just been applying for grants and hoping for the best. After a few years of feedback on how to do it, we finally got one across the line,” Johnson told us. “So I managed to get a grant for about $115,000.”
With these grant funds, BMBC hired Scott Thornhill Enterprises (STE). The club acquired the funds in February 2025, and the trailbuilding crew began construction as soon as possible. Johnson and BMBC couldn’t be more pleased with the results.
The Canada Cup trail is broken into two sections. Canada Cup Upper is decidedly shorter. What it may lack in length, the upper section makes up for in spiciness. Johnson said Canada Cup Upper starts with some relatively tight singletrack through the trees. The trail is chunky before encountering a small(ish) rock drop, which is followed by more chunk, off-camber turns, and just generally steep descending.
The trail traverses another technical, ledgey section that is fairly off-camber, before crossing the shuttle road where Canada Cup Lower begins. According to Johnson, this upper section is rated a black diamond trail, though he made a distinction between this and a “Baseline black,” as he called it.
With the mountain’s trail-building history steeped in building the steepest, gnarliest trails, a “Baseline black” is typically a touch spicier. If Canada Cup Upper were a touch steeper, perhaps it would get that “Baseline black” nod. Regardless, it drops by more than 200 vertical feet over just 800 linear feet. As it progresses into Canada Cup Lower, the trail becomes blue and descends nearly 1,000 feet over a mile and a half.
Before the rebuild, the lower section was a bit narrower and jankier. After the rebuild, though, Canada Cup Lower was widened a touch and caters more toward a dedicated flow trail. The beginning is still relatively narrow as it cuts through the trees. Once it leaves the trees, the trail becomes noticeably wider and begins to feature typical flow trail features—berms, bumps, and jumps.
While Canada Cup Lower enters wooded areas a few more times during the descent, the trail stays wider. However, one thing that doesn’t change throughout the duration of Canada Cup Lower is the high speeds.
“For most people coming out here, [Canada Cup Lower] is an exceptional place to start,” Johnson said. “It’s a great introductory to Baseline.” Riders who may not want the advanced-level tech of Canada Cup Upper can opt to start on the lower section.
Beginner-friendly trails are planned for 2026
Despite Canada Cup Lower’s intermediate rating and BMBC’s intent for it to be an introduction to the mountain, they recognize a lack of beginner-level trails on Baseline. Trail maps show Baseline Mountain’s bent toward advanced trails, with nine black and three double-black trails.
They also have a pro-line. This means the trail system consists of nearly 50% advanced (or greater) trails, and even many of the intermediate trails lean closer to dark blue.
“This year, we actually are hoping to get about half a million dollars in investment from forestry services to actually build more trails,” Johnson said. “We want to be able to encourage the growth of the mountain, so we’re trying to get some green and blue trails with the funding that we have coming this year.”
BMBC is in the process of receiving these funds, Johnson noted. Once they do, they plan to build one green and one blue descent from the top. They will also use some of the funding to continue to rehab older trails. BMBC’s goal with these additions is to make Baseline Mountain more accessible to beginner riders and families.
“The future for us is just to build the community,” Johnson said. “To get the greens and the blues going so we can get more people out and get more people involved. Yeah, that’s our plan for 2026.”
0 Comments