History of Duthie Hill MTB Park

By Justin Vander Pol, founder of Abit Gear.

Long before starting Abit Gear, I was deeply involved in building mountain bike culture in the Pacific Northwest. Back in 2005, while serving as Executive Director of Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance, I came up with the original concept for Duthie Hill Mountain Bike Park and worked with King County to help bring it to life.

Here’s the story of how Duthie came to be.

In the early 00's legal jump and tech trails were rare, but we desparately needed more of them. Fortunately, Evergreen had recently built the weird and wonderful Colonnade MTB Park under a freeway in Seattle. While Colonnade was a Seattle Parks project, a chunk of the funding came through King County’s Youth Sports Facilities Grants.

An unknown rider in the early days of Colonnade- the park that paved the way for Duthie.

Colonnade was a huge stepping stone for Duthie. It proved that jumps and technical trail features could work on public land. Governments tend to follow precedent, and Seattle had already shown that MTB features weren’t much different from skate parks or soccer fields from a liability standpoint. 

At the time, I’d been meeting with King County Parks planner Dave Kimmet looking for locations for DH and jump trails, but nothing we looked at worked. One day he casually mentioned this unused 130-acre park property they weren’t sure what to do with. The next day I walked the site, sampled the soils, and immediately told Dave, “Heck yeah — let’s build a skills park here!” The dirt was good, the terrain rolled nicely, and I was beyond stoked on the potential.

From there, it was time to sketch out a concept. I poured over topo maps and spent hours stomping around the property. I pulled in a few trail building friends to check out the site, including Kevin Philbin and Eric Brown - now Executive Director of WMBC in Bellingham. 

In a classic small-world moment, Duthie had been used by the Cedar River Bowmen until they got kicked off due development in the area, and Eric Brown’s dad had been a leader of the group. The Bowmen would shoot at targets up in the forest canopy. If you look closely, you can still find old arrows lodged up in some of the trees.

Here are my original pencil sketches of the concept from 2005:

Original 2005 hand sketch of Duthie Hill MTB Park concept.

The concept for the central clearing was that the xc loops could be ridden with few intersections, making the 130 acre park feel larger than it is.

Duthie was planned as a place for skill progression and classes. Practice features would go into the 3-acre central clearing.

Jumps were always a part of the vision.

There was a big dose of early 00's freeride features included in the concpet.

Then came the real work: the funding and construction. King County kicked things off with support from the same Youth Sports Facilities Grant program used at Colonnade, and the rest came from other grants, donations, and a massive volunteer effort.

That’s when Mike Westra stepped in as project manager. Mike refined my original concepts and coordinated an army of volunteers who did the digging. He’s truly one of the heroes of Washington mountain biking. Mike — I love you, man, thanks for everything you’ve done for mountain biking!

Mike Westra (left) with some of the HLC Crew 

One of the biggest goals Mike and I had for Duthie was progression. We wanted steps in difficulty from complete beginner to high-flyin’ expert. Duthie needed to be a magnet for kids. Steady progression of trails wasn't easy to pull off, particularly between blues and blacks, but it worked and it's an incredibly important aspect of the park.

Volunteer crews adopted and built different trail lines, something that still continues today. Groups like my mates in the Highlife Crew, the Dirt Corps, DWBs, GHY, Big Tree, and friends digging in memory of Ryan Pringle all played huge roles in the first phase of the park.  

Duthie officially opened with a ribbon cutting on May 22, 2010 - about five years after I first walked the woods.

The park has been a wild success, and its impact reaches far beyond Issaquah. Duthie helped prove that progressive mountain bike trails were appropriate for, and could thrive on, public land. It also helped inspire a generation of bike parks, flow trails, and jump-focused riding areas that are now common throughout the Pacific Northwest.

For me, Abit Gear isn’t just an MTB clothing company. It’s part of a much bigger passion for trail building, advocacy, and supporting mountain biking. Our community is something special, and I’m honored to have played a part in building it up.

10% For the Trails

That’s why I’m donating 10% of all sales from abitgear.com back to the trails. For the month of May, donations are going to Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance to help build and maintain the trails at Duthie Hill.