This summer Gore is planning to expand use the mountain’s facilities and terrain to attract more visitors to North Creek. From Memorial Day to Labor Day the Northwoods Gondola will operate from noon to 3pm on weekends. In addition, the gondola will run seven days a week from July 7 through September 3, 2012.
The lift will serve 1700 feet of downhill mountain biking. Gondola hours are structured to allow convenient access for passengers along the Saratoga North Creek railroad. The newly renovated Gear Source on Ordway Lane in North Creek will serve as a primary source of rental mountain bikes in town.
In addition there are plans to offer interpretive hikes, guided hikes from the summit of Bear Mountain, and a climbing wall on the lawn in front of the base lodge. Other base area attractions will include food and entertainment on Friday afternoon/evenings in July and August. A weekly cooking class is being considered, in addition to instruction or camps on mountain biking and photography.
Very cool!
Gore needs some big time work on the bike trails if they want to keep mountain bikers coming back. The mountain has a ton of potential to have some sweet DH and XC trails. Wolfpack is the best trail they have, but at the same time you have to hike up the work road from sunway to the midstation of the old gondi which sucks when you have body armor, a 40lb bike and its 85* out. The rest of the trails its easy to tell a skier made them….ie, really tight, steep, fall away turns that are possible, but ruin the flow of the trail.
I would love to see Gore get some good trails going because the closest lift served DH runs are 2hrs in pretty much all directions (from saratoga). I rode there the first year they reopened (3yrs ago?) and had fun, but it didn’t go back that year, it wasn’t worth it. I went opening day the following year as well hoping they would change things up. The guided hikes could be pretty cool and it's nice to see them opening the doors for some new stuff, but i think they need to work on the main attraction first and get that where it should be.
The future of lift service mountain biking is “flow trails” (Read This: http://www.hansrey.com/flowcountry.html) Unfortunately, they cost about $30,000 a mile to construct, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
The mountains are great. Bikers like me would like to go back to gore but I think it would be nice if they clear some trails.
This is good news and a good start. I hope they stick with it. There have been starts and stops to summer programs at Gore.
Gore’s activity is dovetailing with the increased ridership on the Saratoga-North Creek Railroad, bringing many hundreds of tourists to North Creek in the Summer and Fall. There is a group forming to develop additional trails in the ski bowl area. Summer/Fall Season Pass for Gore, just $79!
Gore’s expanded activities schedule for this summer is definitely a step in the right direction.
Looks like Gore’s climbing wall was delivered today. Nice!