TRAILS, ADVOCACY, AND SUSTAINABLE RECREATION

Evergreen sees about 1500 students annually, roughly a 50/50 split of youth and adults across the state. 6 of our 8 chapters have education programs: Cascades to Sound (Greater Seattle area), Central (Wenacthee / Leavenworth), East (Spokane), Kittitas (Ellensburg / Roslyn), and Southwest (Vancouver).

We have three main types of offerings: Skills clinics for youth and adults, which are generally a few hours (sometimes as part of a series and meeting weekly for a few sessions in a row); Dirt Camps (standard youth summer day camp format of Mon - Fri all day); and Community Partnership Programs, where we work with youth and adults to run more custom intro to MTB programming for underserved audiences. In the past this has been after-school programs, adaptive mountain biking series, and 1 day rides in partnership with other community groups.

Our programs are taught by ~150 volunteer instructors and ~50 paid summer coach staff.

To me, I see education as the place where motivation for advocacy begins. Most of the students we see are very new to the sport and we have an opportunity to invite them in and help them understand what it means to be part of the mountain bike community. Being part of the community isn't just about riding bikes, but about appreciating the land we get to recreate on, giving back to the trails, and remembering that our access to these amazing spots is a privilege. It's up to all of us to advocate for sustainable recreation opportunities - it's not a given.

My hope is that as the needs for advocacy grow and change, education can still be the spot where we foster the knowledge and the spark to speak up and take action.

I first started mountain biking during my last year of college, in 2012, when some friends convinced me to sign up for an adventure race and I had 3 months to learn how to mountain bike. I used the bike I had as a kid, which technically was a mountain bike, with a little front suspension, but it was way too small and very cheaply made. I was really active in other ways so had no problem keeping up on the climbs but the descents were terrifying - I had no interest in adrenaline sports at that point in my life.

But I went out on a solo ride one day in Montana de Oro state park on the central coast of California, an incredibly scenic spot on bluffs above the ocean, and I had a flowy descent ahead. It was stunningly beautiful and I started picking up some speed. I unexpectedly laughed out loud at how much fun I was having. I had never had a sport bring out that kind of silly, kid-like energy before and I've been chasing that feeling ever since!

This is almost an impossible question because we live in such a unique state where there are so many fun riding opportunities! I probably have to go with the steep, rooty tech and loam around North Bend - it's right in my backyard and my favorite style of riding.

I think I'm most excited about the work we're doing in the adaptive mountain biking space. Several years ago we partnered with Outdoors for All to build out a curriculum for teaching people with disabilities how to ride adaptive mountain bikes and we've now run 6 sessions of a 4-week series for over 30 athletes. We've refined our process and come up with a curriculum I'm really proud to keep repeating and have additionally trained several volunteer instructors in the PMBIA (Professional MTB Instructor Association) Adaptive Module on how to teach riders with disabilities. One of the instructors is an adaptive athlete herself and was one of our first students! That's been a really amazing full circle experience.

The momentum here has spurred off in some exciting ways - first with our trails team through on-trail assessment and modifications to make trails usable by 3 and 4 wheeled bikes and now with our annual mountain bike fest, where we're making the event more inclusive through adaptive-specific rides and shuttle opportunities, and providing the resources and structure to make sure these riders feel welcome and have a great time.

Evergreen can sometimes look like a big organization from the outside but really, we're still a small non profit in so many ways and rely on volunteers for the vast majority of our work. Work parties are a super fun way to get involved - check out our events calendar to sign up and learn how to work in the dirt. Or if education is more your thing, we recruit for instructors starting in January each year. Join our newsletter or follow us on social media to stay in the loop.