Bolton Valley Bike Park

Photo: Pinkbike

Overview:

16 years ago, in the golden age of freeride, Bolton Valley first opened its doors to mountain bikers. The trails were insane gnarly fall lines with massive drops scattered throughout the mountain. However, the park closed later after the resort changed hands. Despite this 10 year hiatus, Bolton is back and better than ever, with pretty much every trail and feature from the OG days restored, and many new ones on the way.

Pros:

Personally, I love riding steep fall line descents and pushing my limits, so I was a big fan of the riding here. Despite this stereotype of Bolton, there is so much more to this place. Sure, trails like Hydra and Outlaw have a steep, old school feel, and are probably the hardest trails I’ve ever ridden, but Double Down is a very modern and fast trail that flows great, and Vista Glades is a new blue flow trail that was built by gravity logic that has some amazing berms.

Cons:

Despite the many amazing aspects of the riding at Bolton, there is one significant drawback: the drainage. When I came here, I was confident that conditions would be dry since it hadn’t rained in a week, but I was shocked when I found myself sliding into mud pits. The locals considered this a “dry” day, and credited the bad conditions to the fact that many of the trails were built a while ago without proper drainage. For this reason, some of the trails would be overrated if conditions were dry, so I actually applaud the park for factoring in trail conditions when rating trail difficulty. However, I also noticed that Broken Bridge, a recently redone blue tech trail, had the worst mud of all, so maybe this problem could be due to the direction the mountain faces. Secondly, since the bike park just opened, they haven’t worked out a lot of logistical details. For example, the lift is extremely slow, and you still have to hike to 6 of the trails. Lastly, there are only two blue trails here, and no greens, so this place is only for advanced riders. However, they are already building more beginner terrain so this won’t be an issue in the future.

Rating (Bike Park Scale): 7

Say what you will about Boltons lack of beginner terrain, or proper drainage, but I think both of these factors add to the uniqueness and fun challenge of riding here. While most bike parks focus on their new, ultra flowy jumplines, Bolton caters to the crowd who wants to push their limits, and really see what is possible on two wheels.