🤝 Donuts, Doubt, and Dirt Bikes: Our First Collaboration on Gold Hill
If you’ve lived through a North Idaho winter, you know where the real business meetings happen: the Schweitzer locker room.
So there I am, late season, changing out of ski boots when I bump into Nick—a guy I’ve known since my crossfitting days. I ask him, “You and your dad still dirtbike a bunch?”
He grins, “All the time.”
I say, “We need to talk about Gold Hill. I think we can work together out there.”
A Little Skepticism, A Lot of Curiosity
Fast forward a few weeks, and we’ve got a meeting on the books. I walk in with a couple of mountain bikers—shoutout to André and Ryan—and as folks trickle in, I can’t help but hear the footsteps. Big boots. Heavy steps. Lots of them!
I start the meeting by with 40 stern faced dudes looking at me and with benevolent innocence, I say, “Wow, look at this energy. How did you guys organize this strong of a movement.”
Then the person next to me says, “We think you’re gonna try to take Gold Hill from us.”
Cue me, the eternally naĂŻve Pollyanna that I am:
“Oh my god, no! I want to work with you guys. You’ve got the motors, you know those trails way better than we do. I want to see how we can put our heads together and make this place better.”
There was a pause. Then, with some healthy skepticism over Eichardt’s garlic fries, they agreed to give it a shot.
April Showers and Shovels
April rolled in wet and gray. There were donuts, Monster Energy drinks, and just enough mutual suspicion to keep things interesting. We piled into the back of state rigs to get to the lower work site, dirt bikers mounting their machines to get to the upper.
But by lunch, something amazing had happened: We’d built an entire trail together.
It wasn’t perfect. It was muddy, it was cold, and we all had different approaches. But we met in the middle. Literally. The work crews converged where the new tread came together—50+ people strong, laughing, sharing tools, and ready for lunch.
Beyond Kumbaya
Yeah, this might sound like a Kumbaya moment, but I’ll admit it:
I teared up in the parking lot.
Because for decades, trail user groups have been pitted against each other. People assumed we couldn’t collaborate, that we’d always be competing for space, for access, for voice.
But this day proved otherwise.
Over barbecue and beers, something shifted. Distrust turned into dialogue. Walls came down. And a seed was planted for more collaboration, more representation, and more shared work on the trails we all care about.
What Gold Hill Taught Us
Gold Hill isn’t just a mountain. It’s a metaphor—for how we move forward.
The Northern Rockies Trail Project exists for this exact reason: to bring different trail users together and remind each other that we’re not as different as we’ve been led to believe. We all want the same thing: healthy forests, open access, safe trails, and a future we can be proud to hand off to the next generation.
So here’s to more donuts, more muddy boots, more honest conversations—and more trail crews that ride different wheels but dig the same dirt.
đź“© Want to get involved or collaborate?
Email us at crew@northernrockiesproject.org.
Let’s build what’s next—together.