Frisco Peninsula Recreation Area director details planned mountain bike, Nordic trail expansions

FRISCO — On Friday, Frisco Nordic Center and Trails Manager Pete Swenson detailed current and future summer multiuse and Nordic trail improvements and expansions on the town’s recreational crown jewel: the Frisco Peninsula Recreation Area.

“Every month during the summer over the next four or five years, when you come out to the (Peninsula Recreation Area), you’re going to find a new trail,” Swenson said about the town’s planned addition of 13 miles of singletrack and 12 kilometers of Nordic trails.

“The way we are constructing the trail inventory is segment by segment,” Swenson added. “We are not doing a super long trail that’s going to not be rideable for months. We are trying to do it in monthlong segments, so we get off of it, and people can enjoy it while we move on to another segment.

”Just last week, the town posted signage for the newly opened Peak One trail. The 1 1/2 mile trail is friendly to beginner and lower-intermediate mountain bikers. It connects the old Dickey day-use parking area to the boat launch at the U.S. Forest Service’s Peak One Campground — which opened for the summer Friday. Swenson said construction was completed on the new Peak One trail in the fall, and recreationists were able to use it as soon as the ground dried out this spring.

In about a month, Swenson said the recreation area will open a new 4,000-foot singletrack segment dubbed Eureka Patch. The trail is being constructed in cooperation with the Forest Service — like all other trails at the recreation area — on an old mining claim. Similar to the other multiuse trails being constructed at the peninsula, the trail has a name that honors the area’s mining history.

“This trail is on the southern aspect of the peninsula, so really it’s going to melt out early every season,” Swenson said. “It just has spectacular views, because it will take people from the old Dickey day parking lot, out on the southern spur of the peninsula and connect back up to Buzzsaw with big views. That will be a very solid, intermediate-level mountain bike trail.”

“All these trails are going to run as well as they are going to ride,” Swenson added. “Thus far, with the first phase of trail construction, they are all going to be multidirectional trails, with good sight lines and two-way traffic.”

The next segment the town will do this summer is the 3,000-foot Excelsior trail followed by the 6,000-foot Treasure Vault.

“By the end of the summer, there’s going to be some nice completely new singletrack loops people can put together,” Swenson said.

Swenson added that once the new singletrack multiuse trail inventory is complete, the town will take the Jody’s Nugget trail, which currently is one of the main trails for mountain biking or running, and recommended it more exclusively for hiking.

Swenson also said improvements have been made to the popular 4.3-mile Perimeter trail, including the removal of many hazardous trees littered across the trail as well as erosion work over about a 2.5-mile stretch.

As for the Nordic additions, Swenson said the recreation area will add about 4 kilometers of new trails by the end of summer.

Over the coming years, the addition of the 13 kilometers of Nordic trails at the peninsula will bring the area’s winter network up to 40 kilometers. Along with other Nordic Center improvements, Swenson said that will enable Frisco’s Nordic scene to become a destination nationally and internationally.

“We are a great little nugget of skiing here right now,” Swenson said. “But we are going to improve the quality of the existing trails and add some new ones. Things have changed a lot since the clear-cutting of trees in 2008.”

As for new Nordic trails planned to be constructed this summer, Swenson said a 1-kilometer extension to the existing 2-kilometer Buzzsaw Nordic trail is in the works as is the construction of the new Nordic trail Giberson’s, in honor of Summit High Nordic coach Gary Giberson. The new Giberson’s trail will be an addition to the new Hannimal’s Nordic trail that opened last winter in honor of late Summit Nordic coach Hannah Taylor.

Article Credit Summit Daily News