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Bordering the town of Silverton to the north lies Boulder Mountain, a south-facing slope that rises to about 12,000 feet and is covered in wildflowers, swathes of pine trees, rocky outcroppings and hardy high-elevation grasses. And, as of fall 2024, Boulder became home to seven miles of intermediate singletrack mountain bike trail – the first installment of a nearly 30-mile trail complex named Baker’s Park.
Silverton lies in the heart of the San Juan Mountains and neighbors mountain biking meccas like Durango, Crested Butte and Telluride. But Silverton didn’t have a mountain bike trail system of its own, Silverton Singletrack Society President Klem Branner said. That’s why he helped start the organization as a nonprofit in 2014, he said, to bring world-class pedaling to the community.
“We started 11 years ago with the Baker’s Park project in mind,” he said. “We are really trying to do this for the entire community, to anyone that wants to go out and do our trails.”
On Aug. 23, Silverton Singletrack Society will host a celebration of the trail opening, along with a $750,000 grant awarded to the nonprofit in late 2024, Branner said. The celebration will include food, drinks and a group bike ride, hike or run on the newly-opened trail.
Branner said the trail system was built with the help of International Mountain Bike Association, a nonprofit that helps communities across the country responsibly develop singletrack and work alongside local land-use agencies. Branner said San Juan County liked the idea of working with IMBA so much that it allocated $13,000 to hire its services.
“IMBA has a for-profit arm that is just a trail-building organization, and they’re the gold standard for all this stuff,” Branner said. “So, we spent that money hiring those guys to come here and do a trail-building school for us, and to go out and look at where we could put these trails.”
He said the existing seven miles of trail and the planned 30-mile trail network have been meticulously planned and will be well built, all with the help of IMBA.
Silverton Chamber of Commerce Executive Director DeAnne Gallegos said the work the nonprofit has done to bring singletrack to Silverton is exciting.
“It’s just been amazing to see a local nonprofit accomplishing their mission,” she said. “To watch the support not only from the community but from our local government to empower a nonprofit to pull off such an amazing feat is just something for this entire community to be proud of.”
Apart from providing more recreational opportunities to residents, the trail system is expected to bolster the town’s economy with more tourism revenue.
“Having that kind of amenity literally at the edge of Silverton is a game changer,” Gallegos said. “Making Silverton the focal point around such an amazing outdoor rec opportunity is something that we currently don’t have.”
She said the development of Baker’s Park coincides with Silverton’s Compass Master Plan, a framework to guide public and private investments in the community to improve the quality of life there. The trail system stands to help diversify Silverton’s economy, tourism demographic and local population in the coming years, she said.
Cliff Pinto, owner of Pedal the Peaks bike shop in Silverton, said the trail system will add to existing trails in San Juan County. It will also allow Silverton locals to pedal from their front doors, rather than having to drive elsewhere.
“Molas Pass, the Colorado trail, Coal Bank pass, all those areas are actually in San Juan County and have been our local trails for quite some time,” he said. “A little easier entry point on mountain biking is definitely something that’s welcomed.”
Pinto said the trail system marks a change in how Silverton is marketing itself, and compared it to when the Silverton Mountain ski area opened in the early 2000s, which gave the town a more reliable year-round tourism draw. The mountain bike trail system will provide more recreation opportunities for the shoulder seasons. It will also add to the draw that four-wheeling, hiking, hunting and fishing currently have in Silverton.
“Building a trail system like this is obviously marking a change,” Pinto said. “There is a shift that’s embracing outdoor recreation. The region is looking at balancing motorized recreation with nonmotorized recreation as well as the sportsman side of things, like hunting and fishing.”
Pinto, who is on Silverton Singletrack Society’s board, said the organization doesn’t want to change the identity of the town. Rather, he said it will add to the character of Silverton, while making sure to preserve what makes the community special.
“I just want to be very clear, as the bike shop guy here, I’m not trying to make this place the next Crested Butte or Durango,” he said. “I’m excited for it, for the community, for our visitors and stuff like that, don’t get me wrong. I really feel that this project, once it’s fully completed, will really balance what we already have in the area.”
Gallegos agreed, and said that the creation of Baker’s Park, in addition to the Compass Master Plan, has been guided by community voices.
“Silverton is in constant evolution, and watching this conscious growth happen with input from community voices is something that we should be proud of,” she said. “That really started from wanting community voices so it was built from the bottom up, not top down.”
The group ride of the new trail will be held at 1 p.m., Aug. 23, followed by a party at Anesi Park at 6 p.m. with food and drink vendors, Branner said. Project partners will give remarks and updates about the project at 6:30 p.m., followed by live music from Joint Point.
sedmondson@durangoherald.com
