Sammamish mountain-bike plan gets cash

After years of pushing for a mountain-bike "skills park" on the Sammamish Plateau, the Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club got a $150,000 boost from King County to move forward with its plans, county officials announced Wednesday.

The club signed an agreement to work with the county on developing the 120-acre project at Duthie Hill Park, a swath of second-growth conifers and deciduous trees that is underused, county officials say.

The course will feature a cross-country loop, dirt jumps and downhill runs with drops, said Jon Kennedy, volunteer director of the Seattle-based trails club. The park is connected to King County's nearby Grand Ridge Park, which features a 6-mile mountain-bike trail.

Design work on the course is scheduled to begin in February, with three public meetings planned for the spring. Construction is expected to start this summer, although additional money will have to be raised to finish the project, Kennedy said.

"What we're here to do is give people a recreational outlet for life," Kennedy said. The club wants to make the park accessible to riders of all skill levels, he said, with trails catering to beginners as well as advanced cyclists. "We plan on jam-packing this park full of trails."

The park sits near Sammamish, which has a high proportion of youth in its population but few recreational places for kids. The city recently opened a skatepark and is talking with YMCA officials about opening a Sammamish branch.

The trails club targeted Duthie Hill Park because it is close to a youth base, Kennedy said.

"There aren't many places where you could ride your bike to a place like this," he said.

That coincided with the county's need to do something with the park, which is "very underutilized right now," said Butch Lovelace, program manager for the county's Youth Sports Facility Grants.

"People that are in the know, know about it," he said. "But there's not much there."

Few, if any, trees will be cut down during the construction, he added.

The project "will be built in a very sustainable and low-impact way," Lovelace said. "The fewer trees removed, the better ... and I don't anticipate any at all. We don't want to have big, wide-open trails."

The biggest chunk of the funding — $100,000 — comes out of the county's community-partnership grant money, with the rest from the Youth Sports Facility Grants program.

The Backcountry Bicycle Trails Club is the state's largest mountain-bike clubs and one of the biggest in the country.

In 2005, the nonprofit partnered with Seattle Parks and Recreation to open the first phase of the I-5 Colonnade, an urban mountain-bike course underneath the freeway in the Eastlake neighborhood. The second phase is expected to be completed by October.

Sonia Krishnan: 206-515-5546 or skrishnan@seattletimes.com