High Fun Factor at Belmont County Park
Story and photos by Jan Lasar
Sam Espey from Jackson, MN, had his first taste of mountain biking at Mission Trails Regional Park when he was stationed at San Diego Naval Base years ago. Back home, while riding on deer trails at Belmont County Park, he stopped and looked around. “Someday, this is going to be a really cool mountain bike area,” he remembers thinking. After graduating from college and a tour in Afghanistan, he connected with the Friends of Jackson County Trails, a local advocacy group. “I missed mountain biking,” he says and suggested the group approach the County board about building trails at the 80-acre property on the Des Moines River. Spurred on by the success of the Minnesota High School Cycling League and visions of people moving to and working in communities with recreational trails, the group made their case in 2017.
“They were seeing it happen across the Iron Range, in areas that weren’t used for anything else,” says Jeremy Bartosh, Jackson County’s Parks and Trails Supervisor. “They were seeing that tourism was exploding in those areas,” he adds. The pitch to the Commissioners worked. “They were all for improving the park so it can be enjoyed more than it has been in the past,” Bartosh remembers.
In early 2021, the County received a $190,000 grant from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, and together with supplements from the Friends of Jackson County Trails and Jackson County, there was enough money to solicit bids for the project. Trail Source, a contractor from Excelsior, MN started construction in mid-April of 2022 and wrapped it up at the end of September. There’s now three trail loops with Lakota names in the park, totaling five miles. Wowahwa (peace) is an easy, flat, 0.7-mile beginner trail. Ian Shasha Wapka (Red Stone River, the Lakota name for the Des Moines River) is a 1.8-mile intermediate ride, and advanced riders will find the 2.7-mile Thaththanka (bison) trail a good fit.
“When it got built, the word was getting out and people were heading out there and getting some early rides in,” Bartosh says, and adds that riders may be surprised at what they find at Belmont County Park. “For southern Minnesota, people think of flat land, corn, and soybeans, and here’s 80 acres of elevated woodland-and there’s ravines.”
“The terrain there allowed for us to just go at it, and it told us what it needed. It was really, really good for mountain biking,” says Hunter Rust, owner of Trail Source, the contractor in charge of the project. When he first set foot on the property, he says he was excited by the possibilities the river valley topography offered, and he’s pleased how the trails turned out from both a fun factor and sustainability standpoint.
With good clay to work with, his crew was able to stack dirt and construct features, like the berms, on some key areas of the system. “My favorite trail has seven or eight berms that link together and go down the hill, and you don’t have to pedal one time,” he says. Compared to the 400 to 500 feet Rust’s crew can build in a day, these two luge-style segments took longer to construct at only 150 feet per day, but to him, it was worth the effort. “It was just so fun, and we felt that it needed to happen,” he says.
Now that the project is complete, he hopes the trails at Belmont County Park will bring riders of all experience levels. “There’s a good variety of trails; it gives everyone something to do,” he says.
Word about what happened at Belmont County Park has drawn more than local enthusiasts. “We’ve had people come down from the Twin Cities area to try it. They know Trail Source and their work, and they wanted to try Trail Source’s new trail,” Espey says. While the five-mile system isn’t very technical, he says, the fun factor is incredible. “It’s like you take all the best parts of your favorite trails and throw them into one.”
It’s no surprise he enjoys the luge features carved into the sides of the river valley. “I judge the quality of the trail by how many schoolgirl laughs I do on the way down. This one is epic when it comes to that,” he says.
Trail development has also spurred other improvements. The County invested in much-needed repairs to the old log shelter by replacing the roof, repairing a water hand pump, and installing two new grills and a bonfire pit. Down the line, Bartosh says, there’ll be an additional skills area, more parking, updated restrooms, and three primitive tent sites. He hopes the new trails will bring more visitors to southwestern Minnesota and that a high school mountain bike team will eventually begin training there. The trails are also open to hikers, who have to walk in the opposite direction. “It’s another piece to the many other trails we have in the area,” he says.
Espey feels proud knowing that the trail system he envisioned is now a reality. “It’s more incredible than I thought it would be,” he says.
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About me
I’m Jan, the publisher of Minnesota Trails Magazine. I’m looking for that one trail, the next ride, a new discovery and other reasons to never sit still in Minnesota.