The prospect of a six-acre mountain bike skills park on Campbell Mountain has moved one step closer to becoming a reality.
Pat Dowler of the Penticton and Area Cycling Association (PACA) shared PACA’s vision to build and maintain the bike park with city council Tuesday, Dec. 8.
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The park would provide a space for mountain bikers to improve their skills in bike handling, balancing, jumping and turning, Dowler explained to council. The park would include wood features, roll-overs, jump-lines and pump-tracks.
Penticton is already home to a very popular bike pump-track off Naramata Road on the corner of Poplar Grove Road.
The bike park would provide a space for riders to “incrementally increase their skill level while lessening the chance of injury while providing an affordable, family friendly activity,” said Dowler. It would also be free to use for all.
PACA hopes to fund the park through donations and grant applications, and use the funds to have the park designed and built by a professional trail building organization and volunteers. Maintenance would be handled by volunteers and donations.
“We feel that the skills park would be a major benefit to the community not only locally but for visitors,” Dowler said. “A major focus is to get youth and families out using the skills park.”
The north-east section of Campbell Mountain is PACA’s first-choice location for the park. There are also two alternate locations, one nearby the first and one near Munson Mountain on City of Penticton land.
| The three locations proposed for the bike park. (PACA photo) |
Travel Penticton and the South Okanagan Trail Alliance both provided a letter of support of the project, with Travel Penticton expressing excitement over the amount of visitors the park could potentially bring to Penticton.
After Dowler’s presentation and a brief question period council was fully supportive of the idea. The proposal will be sent to the Parks and Recreation Committee for further consideration.
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jesse.day@pentictonwesternnews.com
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