Seven Springs

1. Seven Springs Downhill (Lift)

by ljny, Sunday, August 21, 2011 7:12 AM

The first thing to know is that they haven't decided out how to get bikes on the lift even though they have been biking here for 6 years. They use a nice high speed 6 chair, but riders either 1. put the bike tires on the seat with the bike in your face, 2. put the rear tire over the back of the chair, other tire facing forward, 3. hang the bike down under the chair with the handlebars resting on the tops of your thighs, swinging when the lift inevitably stops, or 4. park your bike in the rack and the lift operator will put it on a later chair using a strap, with delivery depending on how many riders are behind you. These are 35 pound dh bikes and you pay to get the lift ticket; they need to put bike sleds, hooks, or some other SYSTEM on the lift to get the bikes up to the top.

With regard to the trails, they have one green, a few blues, and a collection of blacks on the hill. The green is ok, and the blues have some nice rollers and berms on the top half of the hill, some variety coming thru the middle, and drops you into showtime at the bottom. They have some very challenging rock formations on Frankenstein and other black trails, but some had been used as a racecourse, so not all were open. Large drops were well marked (Mandatory Drop) so no big surprises. Only other problem is that all those trails also lead into showtime, so you get kind of sick of the bottom section.

So good potential, but they really need to fix the lift before you can take this seriously. For now, I will take my xc bike as there were lots of riders pedaling up and all around the mountain--looked great.