Client: Dupont Recreational State Forest Location: Hendersonville, NC Grassy Falls is a favorite destination for visitors to the forest, and we were pleased to refresh and improve the sustainability of the trail leading up to the falls. Over the years, the original trail had experienced erosion which had exposed roots, created ruts and made the approach treacherous. By adding some local stone, slightly rerouting the trail and using sustainable building techniques, the new trail will be enjoyed by visitors for years to come....
Client: Ventosa, LLC. Location: Denver, NC Ventosa at Catawba Springs is large lot private development on a historic property. Nature Trails was contracted to design and construct an aggregate surface trail to connect the community road to the 12 acre pond and historical natural springs. The property features towering mature hardwoods and made for an impressive community trail....
Client: Oskar Blues REEB Ranch Location: Hendersonville, NC The REEB Ranch is an unique event venue owned by Dale Katechis, the founder of Oskar Blues and REEB Cycles. The ranch caters to a wide variety of events, but notably, it has a dedicated bike park complete with dual slalom, dirt jumps, pump track, skinnies, and more! Despite all of these cool options, Nature Trails was contracted to build a beginner / intermediate dirt jump section that bridged the skills gap between the pump track obstacles and the large jump lines so that riders had more opportunity for skill progression. We accomplished this by installing a line of progressive tabletops that start around 3ft tall and 6ft long and increase in size gradually up to about 4ft tall and 8ft long without the need for pedaling along the way. In addition, we built two extra small tabletops that are stand alone to provide riders new to jumping the opportunity to catch air without having...
Client: John T. Location: Raleigh, NC John is a new mountain biker who started building a pump track in his front yard in his spare time, but soon realized that building trails is a lot of work! Determined to have trails at his house, John contacted us to design and build him a private bike park where he could improve his current skills and leave plenty of room to improve over time. Our design increases in speed and obstacle size as the trail progresses downhill along his property. Beginning with a straight pump track of 6 rollers, the trail then encounters a 180 degree righthand berm to direct you into two small tabletop jumps. Following the tabletops, the trail berms left into a wooden roller that drops over a retaining wall and into a downhill roller - berm - roller that hits the crescendo with a huge 180 righthand berm with a 6ft curved wall ride! Exiting the wallride, the return trail...
Illustrated Trail Map Before & After Photos Client: Well of Mercy Location: Hamptonville, NC The Well of Mercy is a secluded adult wellness retreat in Hamptonville, NC. We were brought in to do a trail assessment and professionally map the property. Over the years, a hand drawn watercolor map was created, but it was not to scale and lacked necessary detail for proper navigation. We created an enhanced property map to scale while maintaining the hand drawn feel while adding key wayfinding elements and signage to improve the overall guest experience....
Pump Track Construction Photos Client: Aaron H. Location: Lake Gaston, NC Aaron has a lake house in North Carolina and wanted to make use of his wooded lot to create a fun area for his son and he to ride bikes together. We created a small 30'x45' pump track with 1,000ft of winding single track surrounding it....
Trail Building & Construction Photos Client: Triangle Off-Road Cyclists (TORC)
Location: Chapel Hill, NC
We were thrilled to partner with Newland Communities, Briar Chapel's HOA, REI, and Triangle Off-Road Cyclists (TORC) to build the first bicycle skills park in Chatham County. Briar Chapel has been a growing destination for mountain bikers in the Piedmont region and now it has even more reason to attract visitors.
In designing and building the skills park, we focused on three main goals: Sustainability - Build features and obstacles to minimize erosion and that can be easily maintained by volunteers. Each run aligns with natural topography and includes subsurface drain systems and natural rock reinforcements where needed.
Accessibility - All constructed trails were designed to integrate seamlessly with existing infrastructure. The staging area and return paths use existing trail to minimize new construction and provide convenient access to parking and local dining at the Veranda shopping center.
Safe Learning - Each obstacle is designed to have progressive options scaling up from the...
