The first flow trails in Bozeman, MT, are being built on private land at Crosscut and Bridger Bowl

“We really haven’t had a lot of success in developing new trails around Bozeman for the last few years,” said Drew Maier, Vice President of the Dirt Concern, the Bozeman chapter of the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association (SWMMBA).

The renowned outdoorsy city of Bozeman, Montana, is surrounded by endless national forests, but aside from Forest Service land, there is very little other public land on which mountain bike trails can be built. This has led to an uphill battle to get trails approved on USFS land — a battle that, ironically, has been waged against conservation groups.

“There is a massive opposition to developing [any mountain bike trails] here, probably more than anywhere else,” said Kyle Johnson, President of the Dirt Concern. The opposition comes from, “a lot of environmental groups” who are “we’ll say pro-wilderness, but just basically pro not affecting nature and land.” According to Johnson, almost every environmental group has an office or home base “in Bozeman or near the Yellowstone greater ecosystem,” allowing them to go global with their funding drives and then use those global funds to influence local policy around Bozeman.

“I don’t think developing new trails on Forest Service land was necessarily an issue with their trail crew not being big enough. Because they’ve improved a lot of trails,” added Josh Horstmann, President of SWMMBA. “It’s the stark opposition to improving a trail that makes it better for mountain biking, that then potentially, at least in some people’s minds, makes it worse for hiking and horses, or worse for animals.”

Despite the opposition from some groups, SWMMBA conducted a community survey in 2023, which identified that access to trails and the development of new trails were the top two priorities of survey respondents.

SWMMBA is turning its focus to private landowners instead

Weary of the constant battles with environmental groups, SWMMBA is turning its immediate focus to building MTB trails on privately owned land instead. For the 2025 build season (and beyond), SWMMBA is tackling a major project on land owned by Bridger Bowl Ski Area and an adjacent nordic ski area known as the Crosscut Mountain Sports Center.

After a year and a half of planning work and approval processes, this spring, three SWMMBA-hired contractors will break ground on a new trail expansion on this private property. The trails will begin at an existing mountain bike trailhead at Crosscut and then extend up the mountain on Bridger Bowl’s property.

The first flow trails in Bozeman

The new trails at Bridger Bowl will include the first-ever flow trail in the Bozeman area, according to SWMMBA. “This will be the first-ever trail in the Bozeman area that was machine-built — basically like the features are machine-built — and we’re hoping it’s, you know, nice and wide and all that,” said Johnson.

While the Leverich Canyon trail on the other side of Bozeman includes some flow trail-style features, all of the berms and small jumps on Leverich were built by hand, and the trail is still technically a multi-use, multi-directional trail. That means that a horseback rider could, theoretically, ride straight up the jumps and berms if they so desired.

Once complete, the new dedicated downhill trail at Bridger Bowl will measure 2.7 miles long and drop between 1,000 and 1,100 vertical feet. It will be a purpose-built downhill-only descent so that riders can open it up and let ‘er rip!

The new downhill trail will be a classic intermediate-friendly flow trail with big berms and tabletop jumps. While this won’t be a full-on jump trail with tabletops the entire way, it will offer “a handful that you can hit,” according to Maier, who is the Project Manager for the Bridger Crosscut Project.

To get to the top of the downhill trail, SWMMBA is building a one-mile connector trail from Crosscut to reach the bottom of the downhill and then a 3.3-mile multi-directional, multi-use trail that will serve as a climbing trail to reach the top of the descent.

While the connector trail and climbing trail are multi-use, SWMMBA was quick to note that horses are not allowed. Instead, this trail is only open to human-powered traffic — although e-bikes will likely be allowed, as they’re already permitted on the Crosscut trails. Notably, e-bikes are still banned on all non-motorized trails on public land around Bozeman, including the Copper City Trails on BLM land.

This is just phase one of an expansive trail system

A year and a half of meetings and proposals doesn’t seem like a fast process for developing trails on private land, but a big part of the hangup was that Bridger Bowl “ended up having to develop a new mission statement,” according to Johnson. The previous mission statement outlined Bridger Bowl as a winter community asset, and the new mission statement expands Bridger’s mission to turn the area into a year-round recreation destination.

This hard work has laid the foundation for additional phases of trail construction. SWMMBA’s grand plan calls for more descending trails to be built within the loop formed by the new uphill and downhill route.

Phase three is much more ambitious and wide-open, and would consist of trails outside of the new loop on the rest of Bridger’s private acreage. In addition, SWMMBA plans to seek approval to build on Forest Service land included in Bridger Bowl’s special use permit. While this public land would see more red tape than developing on Bridger’s privately-owned land, the existing special use permit should help streamline the approval process.

If Forest Service land could be used, it would expand the scale of the project dramatically by increasing the vertical drop available for these downhill trails from 1,100ft to roughly 3,000 vertical feet.

Finally, Crosscut is currently “exploring the idea of having IMBA or another builder do a master plan and kind of revamping their entire trail network,” according to Maier. The historic trails at Crosscut have created a “spaghetti bowl” of interconnecting trails. A little intentional trail design could go a long way toward improving what Crosscut has to offer.

“Ultimately, our goal as an organization is to develop that as much as possible into a high-density trail network for bikes,” said Maier.

No lift service or shuttle service planned

While these trails are being built on a ski area’s property, SWMMBA was very clear that no chairlift access is planned. “It’s not like we’re trying to turn this into another bike park, right?” said Horstmann.

Bridger is a community-run ski area, not a four-season resort. “It’s not within their 10-year master development plan to put bikes on lifts. It’s also not within their operation plan to run anything in the summer,” said Johnson. That’s why the trails begin and end at Crosscut, which “is hoping to have full summer facilities, potentially, where you could get a burger and beer, type of the vibes.”

There won’t be any shuttle access to these trails, either. The only way to reach the top of the descents is under your own power… or cranking your e-bike motor up to Turbo.

Fundraising work and build timeline

SWMMBA is currently raising $300,000 for this project. The club is applying for MTSP grant funding and is planning to submit for the county’s open lands grant in a few weeks.

In addition, SWMMBA is focused on individual and community donors. “This is gonna be a grassroots fundraising opportunity for the community and the surrounding area,” said Horstmann.

SWMMBA already has some funds earmarked for the project, and they also have “a couple of events coming up this spring that are going to be specifically tied to fundraising,” according to Horstmann.

Builders will be on the mountain as soon as the snow melts in the spring. “We’re shooting for September as the end date so that ideally, we have a few weeks at least of the community being able to ride it in before the winter hits and [it’s] snow-covered for six, seven, eight months,” said Maier.

Updated 8:15am MST March 6, 2024.