PORT ANGELES — A couple of broken signs and few busted pieces of lumber are mostly all that’s left of a mountain bike staging area in the hills west of Port Angeles after vandals sacked the course last week.
Scott Tucker, a founder of the club that maintains the Dry Hill mountain bike trails, discovered the damage Oct. 8.
He found that a loading ramp for the bikes and the backdrop to the awards podium had been taken.
The following Saturday, Tucker returned to find more damage.
Vandals had broken the finish sign at the end of the trails in half, knocked over another sign at the entrance of the staging area and destroyed a jump near the top of the course.
He said that tire tracks indicate that vandals were riding two off-road vehicles.
“They basically tore apart everything we had built,” said Tucker, who co-founded the Olympic Dirt Society, the club responsible for maintaining the trails.
He estimated the damage at the course — which is on Walkabout Way, just off U.S. Highway 101 west of Port Angeles — at $1,500.
The Clallam County Sheriff’s Office is investigating, said Chief Criminal Deputy Ron Cameron, who had no additional information.
The vandals left behind empty beer cans and plenty of tire marks, Tucker said.
He said the tracks seemed to be from a four-wheeler and multipassenger off-road vehicle known as a Rhino.
Both of those vehicles were seen leaving the area on Oct. 7, he said, when some of the vandalism is believed to have occurred.
Deep tread marks in the mud at the base of the wooden frame that held the finish sign point to a failed attempt at pulling down the structure.
A gate blocks the entrance to the base of the course, but Tucker said it could have been accessed by the nearby trails for dirt bikes, quads and other off-road vehicles.
Tucker suspects the vandalism was carried out by users of the other trails who may not like sharing the hill with mountain bikers. He cites the extensive damage as the basis for that assumption.
“They were definitely targeting us,” he said.
“They’ve done everything they can to tear everything down.”
Open this weekend
Tucker said the vandalism won’t stop the club from opening the trails this weekend to riders for $35 each.
But there will be some more cleaning up to do.
“We’re going to clean it up as much as we can,” he said, while viewing the damage.
Money raised this weekend will be used to repair the damage and install security cameras, Tucker said.
Anyone who has information on the vandalism should contact the Sheriff’s Office at 360-417-2459.
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Reporter Tom Callis can be reached at 360-417-3532 or at tom.callis@peninsula dailynews.com.