Bogus Basin and the Basin Gravity Park are located roughly 16 miles from downtown Boise, Idaho. Bogus is where locals and visitors go to play, but the mountain differs from other bike park resorts you may be familiar with.
Rather than a regular revenue stream going into the pockets of major investors, money earned at Bogus is reinvested back into the ski area. Unlike many major resorts around the country, Bogus Basin is a non-profit mountain.
Boise’s locally-owned non-profit ski area
Bogus Basin is, without a doubt, Boise’s mountain. The 16-mile drive is a winding 45 minutes from downtown Boise on a narrow, two-lane road popular among road cyclists. It is a drive that many in Boise take throughout the year, regardless of whether they are skiing or mountain biking.
When we arrived, yoga students were wrapping up a class on the front lawn. Other people sat at a huge outdoor patio area, enjoying their morning coffee. More than a bike park, Bogus Basin seems to be an out-of-the-way gathering space for the Treasure Valley — nearly an extension of Boise itself.
“The beauty of operating a non-profit is that every dollar earned is re-invested back into the mountain recreation area,” Brad Wilson told us. Wilson is the General Manager of Bogus Basin, a position he stepped into in 2015. Since Bogus Basin’s opening in 1942, the mountain resort has only seen six other GMs before Wilson.
Skiing in the Boise foothills stretches back to before the mountain was officially opened. In 1939, ski pioneer Alf Engen, who is credited for developing powder skiing, helped choose the location for Bogus Basin. The resort opened a few years later with a 500-foot rope tow, with more lifts added over the decades. Its name was adopted from the area’s mining stories dating back to the mid-1800s when miners made “bogus” gold by melting small amounts of gold with other metals.
Since its beginnings, Bogus Basin has relied on the support of the greater Boise community. While there were ups and downs — they even had to shut the door at times — the mountain has operated as a non-profit entity since day one. This vision was formalized in 2005 when Bogus officially received its 501(c)(3) status. It is the largest of just a handful of non-profit mountains in the United States.
Wilson gave us an overview of how the structure works. “As General Manager, I report to the chairman of a thirteen-person board of directors,” Wilson explained. “Our thirteen-member board is selected from the Bogus Basin Recreational Association (BBRA). Technically, the BBRA owns Bogus Basin.”
Not just anyone can be on the BBRA. Wilson explained that the BBRA comprises roughly 100 people from the Boise or greater Treasure Valley area. The Association must include both locals with a stake in the mountain and season pass holders.
For Wilson and his team, this means things actually getting done with the mountain’s best interest in mind. “No shareholders, ownership groups, or venture capitalists to share the profits. Since I’ve been here, we’ve invested over $70 million back into the area and have no debt,” he told us.
Mountain biking at Bogus Basin
Since Wilson arrived, part of that financial investment back into Bogus has been the opening of The Basin Gravity Park in 2017. While there are now lift-served downhill mountain biking trails just a few miles from downtown Boise, these certainly weren’t the first mountain biking trails on the mountain.
“Before 2017, we provided access to many different cross-country trails that were built by Ridge To Rivers,” Wilson told us. Many of these trails are in the Boise Foothills trail system and were built in partnership with the City of Boise, Ada County, the Forest Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
“Since 2017, we have built many more downhill-oriented trails, improved some of our cross-county trails, and opened the Basin Gravity Park,” Wilson continued. “The park is accessible by two high-speed detachable quad chairs on weekends and holidays and one midweek.”
The two lifts Wilson is referring to are Bogus Basin’s Morning Star Express chair and the Deer Point chair. Of the two chairs, Morning Star Express is the only chair we rode, as it accesses Bogus’ downhill trails. The Deer Point chair takes riders up a section of the mountain that allows for easier access to the area’s XC trails. Wilson told us it is a good option for those wanting to ride the infamous Bogus to Boise route.
From the Morning Star Express lift, we took our first lap down the trail that started it all for the Basin Gravity Park: Berm Baby Berm. This intermediate flow trail winds over a mile down the mountain, dropping just over 900 feet.
Berm Baby Berm is an excellent introduction to the Basin Gravity Park. It is manageable for beginner-level riders but has enough optional side hits and jibs to keep things interesting for those who are more experienced. Berm Baby Berm was also a testament to Bogus’s phenomenal trail building, as each berm was essentially perfect at trail speed. The only issue with Berm Baby Berm and the rest of the Basin Gravity Park was loose, sandy corners.
When riding bike parks in August, you should expect loose conditions. The Boise area is particularly dry; Bogus Basin offers little in the way of shady sections of trail. These loose and arid conditions kept us off the bike park’s more technical singletrack — Loam Star Runner and G-19 — except for one lap.
Loam Star Runner is an intermediate tech trail that can be ridden fast once you know the lines through the rock gardens. G-19 takes the challenge up quite a bit, adding some tricky off-camber rock rolls and longer rock gardens. In the right conditions, both trails would be a blast and a needed change from what the Basin Gravity Park does well: flowy jump trails.
Two trails in particular set the standard for Bogus’ flow trails. The first was the freshly rebuilt Rabid Badger. This black diamond jump trail drops nearly 450 feet, covering seven-tenths of a mile down the mountain. The jumps are big, lippy tables that may have you thinking twice about riding Rabid Badger. Fortunately, carrying speed through very loose corners was difficult, providing a good excuse for not clearing the jumps.
The blue-rated little brother to Rabid Badger, Air Traffic Control, really stood out to our group. Every bike park needs a well-built intermediate jump trail, and Bogus hit the nail on the head with Air Traffic Control. Despite loose corners, this trail is built well enough that you can lose a significant amount of speed in the turns but regain enough momentum to clear the jumps.
We did at least 10 laps down Air Traffic Control. We could make it down the mountain in roughly five minutes, and lift lines were relatively short, especially considering it was Saturday.
More to come…
The Basin Gravity Park does have more trails, including a handful of black and double-black diamond trails that step things up. However, we opted not to ride these trails for a few reasons.
The first was because conditions were so loose. After riding down G-19, we were a bit hesitant to ride more tech, especially if we were considering stepping things up to double-black.
The other main reason we didn’t ride these other trails was their location. From the top of the Morning Star Express lift, these trails dropped off into Bogus’s 40 Acres of Freedom area, a part of the mountain that doesn’t funnel back to the lift. We thought that riding those trails would have meant climbing back to the lodge; however, it sounds like we were mistaken.
“The 40 Acres of Freedom ends at the Nordic Lodge,” Wilson explained when I later asked about the section. “So, the only pedaling is through the main parking lot.”
Had we known that, we may have ventured into that area, risking the loose and dusty trails. However, it was also somewhat unclear if these trails were open. Wilson did tell us that there are closed trails around the mountain due to the addition of two chairlifts. “We will re-open trails…and have them ready for next summer,” Wilson told us.
Bogus is growing, so I look forward to visiting again to see what has been added. Wilson even teased the possibility of using another chairlift for further trail development in their Bitterroot zone, which neighbors 40 Acres of Freedom. “We will be adding trails and enhancing that terrain with the intent of opening that lift when demand warrants.”
