Seattle, WA, averages nearly 40 inches of annual precipitation. While a bit of rainfall is excellent for the surrounding trail systems, 40 inches can overwhelm even the hardiest of the trails, creating a sloppy, unrideable mess.
Building trails under an elevated interstate was a novel solution to the problem: it would keep riders out of the Seattle rainfall and provide riding opportunities closer to the city. This is precisely what the Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance did two decades ago at Seattle’s I-5 Colonnade Park.
Evergreen will add over 9,000 square feet of pump tracks to the I-5 Colonnade Park in the coming months. And, if all goes according to plan, they hope to carry the momentum from the pump track project into some much-needed revitalization for the park.
How an undeveloped area beneath a Seattle Interstate became a unique MTB destination
I-5 Colonnade Park covers over seven acres just north of downtown Seattle, between the Capitol Hill and Eastlake neighborhoods. The area was created in the 1960s with the construction of the interstate through Seattle. As city planners and road crews developed and designed I-5, they chose to elevate the interstate throughout the city. This kept interstate traffic away from Seattle street traffic and allowed neighborhoods on either side of the new interstate to remain connected.
For these reasons, this particular stretch of I-5 was placed roughly 100 feet above the neighborhoods. While the interstate opened in 1967, the area beneath was left undeveloped for nearly four decades until shovels hit the dirt and construction began on the I-5 Colonnade Park.
Not only was the idea of an urban mountain bike skills park under a bridge the first of its kind in the US, but it would also put Evergreen on the map. “It was Evergreen’s first project,” David Fleischhauer, Trails Program Director at Evergreen, told us.
Construction started in 2005 and continued until 2007. The park would officially open in September 2007 with Limestone Loop. A year later, various trails would be added, from beginner to more advanced. Over time, the park expanded with techy rock rolls, ladders, skinnies, drops, and dirt jumps.
The idea also spread to other cities. Decades later, cities such as Louisville, KY, see Evergreen’s vision as a viable option for their communities.
As mountain biking expanded, so did the need for access to more public trails. Colonnade Park paved the way for Evergreen to develop trails at places like Duthie Hill, Tiger Mountain, and Raging River.
“So it used to be that people [would] drive into Seattle to mountain bike, and now they’re driving out of Seattle to mountain bike,” Fleischhauer said. “So part of this pump track [project] is the first phase of what we hope is more of a revitalization of the Colonnade and really rebuilding it to meet current needs. So better for families, better for beginner and intermediate riders.”
Two new pump tracks for Colonnade Park
A revitalized Colonnade Park has been on the minds of the folks at Evergreen for at least six years. Momentum picked up for Evergreen during COVID, as riders trying to stay closer to home began heading back to the Colonnade Park.
“A lot of local riders to the Colonnade came out and did a lot of trail work there as volunteers and also with help from our staff,” Fleischhauer told us. “We’ve known that there needed to be an effort to refresh things for some time.”
This first phase of new development at Colonnade consists of two paved pump tracks. The smaller of the two tracks will cover about 3,000 square feet, and the larger track, located just to the south, will cover about 6,000 square feet.
Both tracks will be built and shaped using crushed rock, then covered with asphalt, since durability and longevity are at the top of Evergreen’s priority list for Colonnade. To accommodate neighborhood kids and beginners, the smaller track will be built with relatively low-angle slide slopes. It will also be wide enough for adaptive mountain bikes.
The larger of the two pump tracks will be “more traditionally what people think of as a pump track.” The slopes and angles will be steeper and taller, allowing riders to carry more speed throughout the track. And despite the prominent use of wood features throughout Colonnade Park, both pump tracks will be asphalt only.
Funding for the pump tracks comes from two sources. First, Evergreen was awarded a $120,000 King County Youth and Sports Grant through Seattle Parks. The rest of the funding — $90,000 — came from private donations to Evergreen.
Hopefully, the park will get a complete facelift
As riders returned to Colonnade Park, it was apparent it needed some work. Despite most of the park having I-5 as a rain shield, wooden features needed repairing, jumps needed rebuilding, and the entire park just needed some TLC.
“I really like all the built-wood features,” Fleischhauer said. “It’s a really cool element of the park. But a lot of those have kind of broken down or need repairs to be safe and be what people are looking for.”
This is also true of the dirt jumps at the park, which Fleischhauer hopes will be phase two of the Colonnade revitalization. He hopes to build longer jump lines with a bit lower grade. Currently, many jumps, berms, and other features have fairly tight radiuses. They were built in the late 2000s when 26-inch wheels were king. Fleischhauer hopes to update some of these lines with our larger, modern wheel diameter in mind.
For now, a full revitalization is still in the dreaming stage for Evergreen, as no plans are official or permits have been given. But Evergreen is currently in full swing on the pump track builds — they’re breaking ground in mid-March, and the tracks should be complete by late May.
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