Building For the Future!
2022
Sunrise Flow Trail
"Jaage"
This page is for our board members personal project at Sunrise Ski Resort to support the Arizona gravity riding community! This project is supported by TGR crew and its core volunteer base but is financially supported by personal funds and personal donations from those in the mountain bike community that support this special project.
Long, long Short story cut short is after many years of approaching Sunrise about doing maintenance with no luck on striking a deal that balanced work vs. reward aka lift tickets for volunteers we struck a deal this year. With management at an all time high at Sunrise our President(Chris) and board member James(no stranger to Sunrise) decided to up the ante for this personal mission of theirs. The offer was to not only design and build a green flow trail for mountain bikers but also offered to fund this trail out of personal funds and those acquired through a go fund me they setup to let the local communities chip in on this dream. With the support of the Bike Park manager(Brian) and the rest of Sunrise Staff/Tribe blessing our offer was accepted.
The concept was to build a green machine cut flow trail giving mountain bikers who visit Sunrise a much-needed Green Flow Trail! Sunrise has great old school raw gnar that is not always appreciated by newer riders and younger riders just getting into the gravity sport. The trail will be built in a manner that also allows for rider progression while on the same trail(blue options). The end goal is to provide a nice flowy and fun trail that everyone will enjoy and put into the rotation of their favorite trails to ride when visiting Sunrise.
Chirs and James are super stoked to be able to bring this project to life and look forward to the hoots and hollers that will be echoing down the mountain for years to come.
We also hope that this is the beginning of a yearly push to add to and make Sunrise truly an Arizona destination that has something for everyone + more!(did you know there is even a jump line and dual slalom at Sunrise now? Check out Colby's work @ Colbys_bike_tracks )
While this trail is built it is not quite done. They will be returning as soon as the snow melts to add more fun to Jaage before getting ready to bring everyone another beautiful creation thanks to Sunrise and their commitment to back the majority of costs needed to bring a new Blue Flow Trail to Sunrise be on the lookout for ways to support Chris and James as the 2023 season gets closer.
None of TGR funds are being utilized for this project and any donations made to TGR or through any donation link on our website will NOT be used for this project as TGR funds are only for Pinal Mountain and our Pinal Mountain Master Plan. So be sure to donate to the 2023 gofundme page if you want to support this specific project.
There will be multiple public volunteer opportunities in 2023 to help out in front of the machine and to help with the ever so gratifying hand finishing work behind the machine. Keep an eye on the Facebook volunteer page for those public events. Sunrise will reward our volunteers with a one day pass for helping us bring this trail to life. There will also be bigger incentives from Sunrise in 2023 for those who help come out to help more than once.
Keep an eye on our Instagram account as well for the incoming stoke.
2023
Sunrise Flow Trail
"Identity Crisis"
Another great year expanding riding opportunities at Sunrise!
With the great success of last year's project. Chris and James returned to Sunrise to dedicate their summer to continue to expand machine-built trail at Sunrise. This year Chris bought a personal Mini-x. Plans for his machine is mainly to help bring the Pinal Mountain Trail System master plan to life more efficiently by not relying as much on public donations and grant money to hire out for the trail expansion on Pinal Mountain. He is able to volunteer his time and machine to help bring the masterplan to life which saves a huge amount of money and of course all the headaches related to heavy fundraising and grant writing. This also allows him to use his machine at Sunrise.
This year Chris and James returned to up the stakes a bit and create a blue flow trail. The new trail starts at the end of Jaage' to allow users to have a full machine-built experience down the mountain.
Since they didn't rent a machine, they had more time this year to do other projects as well. One of those projects was building two short connectors that provides better connections. One to Pinedale and one that gets you to lift line or East Ridge from the west side of the mountain.
Right at the end of the season they found time to do a full rebuild of Pinedale and turn it into a true green flow trail completing the full top to bottom flow trail experience.
Thats just the machine work they did this year. They also shoveled lots of snow and did lots of handwork on some of the other trails on the mountain creating more smiles per mile.
We can't wait to see what they got up their sleeves for next years push to continue to improve and expand riding at Sunrise.
Trusty Greenworks Saws
We pulled out all the stops to make quicker progress on the opening up the corridor for the trail. Yes its going to be 60"+ wide
Deadfall Decades old
As you might expect this 2nd growth forest is thick with downfall that is decades old.
Thick Forest
We have lost count of how many trees we have had to cut to open up a nice corridor with great sightlines.
