Steve Cleary and Carl Battreall said they wanted a place on the east side of Anchorage where kids could learn to mountain bike.
Nico Graziano takes a jump on one of the newly opened bike trails at Russian Jack Springs Park in Anchorage on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
“These are my favorite trails so far,” said 8-year-old Dominic Prossick-Brown as he sat on the ground eating a celebratory hot dog after checking out the trails during Tuesday’s opening celebration. “I love bike riding. It’s my favorite activity to do.” Luckily for Dominic, his family can bike to the Russian Jack trails if they’re coming from his grandmother’s house. Before these tracks opened, most of Anchorage’s singletracks were further south, meaning bikers on the east side likely had to drive to get to them.
Cleary lives in this neighborhood himself. He and neighbor Carl Battreall, who also works for Alaska Trails, are the two dads who dreamed up the project. They have sons who are about the same age, and they both wanted a place close by for them to learn to mountain bike. It ended up taking years to build the tracks, but it’s still so worth it, Battreall said.
“You can use this park to build your skills so that you can safely progress,” Cleary said. “Now that my son is 16, he’s doing things that I will never do, and that kind of scare me, but I’m glad that he’s been doing it since he was 6 or 8 years old, so that he’s built up to be confident and safe.”The trails are singletracks, which means they’re narrow and designed specifically for biking.
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