When most riders think of British Columbia’s mountain biking hotspots, destinations like Whistler, North Vancouver, and Squamish instantly spring to mind. If you’re feeling adventurous, maybe you’ve ventured as far north as Pemberton or Kamloops. But here’s the kicker: all of these legendary riding towns are crammed into the far southern edge of a province that spans nearly one million square kilometers.
Nearly 1,000 km north, on the Yellowhead Highway, is the small town of Houston, BC. This growing cycling community is near the end of a corridor of mountain bike trails that stretches north from Williams Lake. The town of Houston thinks it can become a mountain bike destination ranked with the likes of Burns Lake and Smithers.
How? More trails and a wood-fired pizza oven, of course.
Houston, BC, is more than a “company town”
“We’ve primarily been seen as a resource extraction community,” Joshua Seinen told us. “And that’s beginning to change.”
Seinen helps with communications and marketing for the Houston Mountain Bike Association (HMBA), a trail advocacy group in Houston, BC. The town’s hundred-plus-year history has revolved around two primary industries — timber and mining. And, for a time, this “company town” style of community works. A resource is identified, and a company comes in to extract said resource. Homes are built to house workers, and businesses are started to meet the needs of the community members. And, whether good or bad, everything has a connection to the company that first showed up to extract the resource.
Eventually, resources will run dry. Yet Seinen shared that many residents can still feel a connection or loyalty to the company or industry on which the town was founded.
“A lot of these resource extraction towns think any type of secondary industry is a threat,” he said. A shift in the town’s focus to a different industry, such as a tourism-based outdoor recreation industry, could mean the industries they’ve depended on for so long might not return.
As those resources become scarcer, HMBA sees an opportunity for its community to embrace a new recreational culture. While they don’t want to replace jobs or change the community overnight, HMBA does want to look toward the future, knowing that mining and logging can’t last forever.
“What we’re trying to really do is give ourselves a secondary option,” Seinen shared. “ And we’re trying to build the culture of mountain biking and of being in our own great outdoors.”
All you need to do is look at a map to see that Houston has quite a bit of that resource.
A potential mountain biking destination
Luckily, Houston isn’t just waiting for the next boom-and-bust cycle — community groups are stepping up and leading the charge. HMBA oversees the trails at Mount Harry Davis, which climbs over 2,000 feet just north of town. The trail system currently consists of eight trails — four greens, two blues, and two blacks — totaling nearly 10km.
And it is growing.
“The Mount Harry Davis Trail Network has been growing pretty steadily,” Seinen said. “I think, after this summer, there will be six new trails made in the last two years.”
Along with trail expansion at Mount Harry Davis, HMBA is looking for more opportunities to get two wheels onto dirt. The club partners with a local ski club that hosts summer run/mountain bike events at their 40 kilometers of Nordic ski trails. While this is the only time mountain biking is allowed on the trails, HMBA sees potential for a summer XC trail network.
Houston’s logging legacy left behind a silver lining: thousands of kilometers of deactivated forest roads that now offer a ready-made bikepacking network. With just a bit of signage and route planning, riders could explore deep into the backcountry — even reaching Morice Lake Provincial Park in a day.
“Like 100-some kilometers from here is Morice Lake Provincial Park. A person could park here in Houston, and if they knew which way to go, they could get out there in probably a day and camp there for a little while,” Seinen said. “Then there’s a whole bunch of other routes nearby that you’d be able to hit, and you could probably get lost out there for months.”
Mount Harry Davis… and more to come
The history of mountain biking on Mount Harry Davis stretches back nearly two decades. The trail network has slowly been built to the 9-10km they have today. The riding has a good mix of tech and flow. While the lion’s share of current trails are beginner-friendly, the area does have a handful of intermediate and advanced options. These trails offer steeper descents, fast corners, and loose rock that mandates focus.
But the goal has always been to create a trail experience with enough routes that riders of all levels will be able to enjoy. Seinen shared that the area is built for easy progression, with green trails for climbing and descending top to bottom. More advanced blues and blacks come off these lines, allowing for more challenging descents.
And more trails are coming. While HMBA couldn’t discuss the exact details of the new trails, they are in the process of adding roughly 5km of new singletrack. The group will continue to focus on trails that allow for steady progression, but will also focus on some black and double-black trails to fill current gaps.
Some funding will come from the organization itself, but the bulk of funding, allowing them to add the singletrack, is from a $400,000+ provincial grant.
Wood-fired pizza
Along with the new trails, a wood-fired pizza oven will also be added to Mount Harry Davis’ trail hub. While Singletracks has reported on interesting trailhead amenities for many years, we believe this is the first pizza oven we’ve heard of.
Seinen explained that the idea comes from a desire to create more than just a trail center.
“You could go up there with the whole family and be able to spend all day up there,” he told us. “There are walking trails for grandma and grandpa if they want to go and just look out at the valley. Part of this initiative is that it’s not just about riding — it’s a community center.”
And, of course, make pizza. Seinen said they are looking into local craftsmen and artisans for the actual construction of the oven. Once complete, the plan is to partner with local restaurants to essentially have a pizza kit with everything needed to create a pie. Residents and visitors could swing into a restaurant, pick up a kit, and head to Mount Harry Davis to cook, eat, and ride.
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