A Mountain Built for the Way Down: Inside Hatley Pointe's New Lift-Served Bike Park

By Jon Tharp, Broker  ·  June 30, 2026

A chairlift built to carry skiers down a snow-covered mountain is about to spend its summers hauling mountain bikers and their bikes to a 12-trail park that did not exist a year and a half ago.

That is the headline at Hatley Pointe Mountain Resort, which opens its first lift-served bike park on Saturday, August 1. The first phase, designed and built by Marshall-based Elevated Trail Design, links 12 trails through three primary descents off the summit, giving riders a real menu of ways down the mountain. For a resort most people in the region know as a winter destination, this is a new identity taking shape.

If you ride, you already know how rare this is in our corner of the state. If you do not ride, this is the kind of thing that quietly reshapes a small mountain economy, one chairlift ticket and one tank of gas and one post-ride lunch at a time.

A Ski Resort Learns to Ride

Hatley Pointe did not just clear some trails and call it a bike park. The work of turning a ski mountain into a summer riding destination touches almost every part of the operation.

Jeff Fissel, general manager at Hatley Pointe, ran through the list of what had to change. The lift system itself needed modifications. Bikes do not ride a chairlift the way people do, so the resort added bike carriers and expanded the loading and unloading areas to handle riders and machines safely. Then came staff training, inspections, and entirely new safety protocols built for a sport the mountain had never hosted.

The changes reach all the way down to the base area. Fissel said the team had to rethink food and beverage operations to match how mountain bikers actually move through a day. Skiers and bikers keep different rhythms. A rider lapping the lift on a warm August afternoon wants something different from a skier coming in cold and hungry in January, and the resort is reshaping the base to meet that.

This is the unglamorous part of building a bike park, and it is also the part that determines whether the place works. Anyone can imagine trails on a mountain. Far fewer can rework a lift, retrain a staff, and re-engineer the bottom of the hill so the whole experience flows. That groundwork is what separates a real lift-served park from a few downhill runs.

The People Who Build the Mountain

The trails themselves come from Elevated Trail Design, and the company's roots are part of what makes this project notable for the area.

Founder and owner Peter Mills started the company in 2011 and has spent the last 15 years designing and building trail systems and bike parks all over the country. That is a long résumé, and it usually means working far from home. This project was different. Elevated Trail Design is based in Marshall, just up the road, so the crew was building a destination in its own backyard.

Mills does not hide that the proximity made the work meaningful. Building a lift-served park within reach of your home base is the kind of opportunity that does not come around often, and you can hear it in how he talks about the trails.

The resort brought Elevated Trail Design in shortly after acquiring the property, and not for a quick job. The resort asked the company to develop a long-term vision for mountain biking at Hatley Pointe, the kind of multi-year plan that treats the mountain as a years-long project rather than a one-season job. Construction on the first phase began in February 2025.

That long-term framing matters for anyone deciding whether to invest a day in the place. What opens on August 1 is a starting point, built by people who plan to keep shaping this mountain for years.

Twelve Trails, Three Ways Down

Phase one is small on paper and large in practice. Twelve trails, three primary descents, one summit.

Mills is candid that this is just the beginning, but he pushes back on the idea that a first phase has to feel thin. His team, he said, squeezed so much into these trails that they are action-packed. The three descents give riders genuine choice. You are not stuck riding the same line all day. You can string together different routes, find the one that suits your mood, and come back to it.

The design philosophy blends two things that do not always coexist. On one side is natural terrain, the rooty, rocky, contour-following riding that feels like the real Southern Appalachian backcountry. On the other is the sculpted bike-park feature, the berms and rollers and jumps that engineers shape from the dirt.

Mills described the goal as a good mix of natural trail and full-on bike park that feels like a dirt roller coaster. That phrase does a lot of work. It tells you the park is not only for chest-out experts hucking off drops, and it is not only mellow nature cruising either. It is built to let one rider find both in a single afternoon.

For a region whose riding has long leaned toward natural, pedal-powered singletrack, a purpose-built park with that range is something new. These are not trails you stumble onto in a public forest. Crews drew, shaped, and tested them to be ridden hard and ridden often.

Why the Lift Changes Everything

The chairlift is central to the whole concept, and Mills is clear about why.

The entire point of a mountain bike park, he said, is to progress your riding on features and trails built specifically for the sport. Progression depends on repetition. You do not learn a jump or a technical rock section by hitting it once. You learn it by hitting it again and again, each lap a little smoother, until the move stops feeling scary and starts feeling automatic.

That is where the lift earns its keep. On a traditional trail, every descent costs you a long, lung-burning climb back to the top. By the time you reach the feature again, you are tired, and you might get only a handful of attempts in a whole day. The chairlift erases that tax. You ride down, you load up, you ride down again.

Mills put it plainly. The chairlift lets you get as many practice laps as you need to feel comfortable on a feature without pedaling to the top of a mountain again and again. The skills you build there do not stay there either. Confidence earned at a bike park travels with you to other parks and trails across the region.

For families, this format quietly solves a real problem. A parent and a newer rider can take run after run at their own pace without anyone getting wrecked by the climb. The mountain does the hard work, and the rider keeps the fun.

What It Means for the Region

Mills believes riders arriving for opening season will find an experience unlike anything else currently available nearby, and the geography backs him up.

The mountains around Asheville and up toward Johnson City already hold some of the best mountain biking in the East. What that landscape has mostly lacked is lift-access riding. Hatley Pointe, Mills said, is a perfect complement to round out the broad range of mountain biking in the greater WNC region. It fills a gap rather than competing for the same riders.

The practical effect is a new reason to point your weekend toward the mountains north of Asheville. Lift-served parks tend to anchor a whole day and often a whole trip. Riders drive in, buy lift tickets, eat at the base, fuel up in town, and frequently need a place to stay the night. Towns like Marshall and Mars Hill sit close enough to feel that ripple.

It also extends the resort's calendar in a meaningful way. A ski mountain earns its living in a narrow winter window. A bike park turns the warm months into a second season, which means steadier work for staff and steadier traffic for the small businesses that orbit any mountain resort.

Mills framed the welcome simply, saying the Hatley Pointe team is eager to welcome mountain bikers to the resort. For a region that built its reputation on the outdoors, adding a genuinely new way to enjoy the mountains is the sort of thing that tends to stick. If you have ever watched how a single trailhead can change the feel of a small town, you can imagine what a lift-served park might do, and it is one more reason the appeal of life in these mountains keeps drawing people who want to wake up close to it.

Planning Your First Day

Opening day is Saturday, August 1, so there is time to sort out the details before you load the car.

Confirm a few things directly with the resort as the date nears. Lift ticket pricing and hours top the list, along with whether bike rentals and protective gear are available on site or whether you should bring your own. If you are newer to lift-served riding, ask about lessons or guided sessions, since the format rewards a little coaching early on.

Think about timing, too. Opening weekend at any new park tends to draw a crowd, which is part of the fun and also a reason to arrive early. The trails blend natural terrain with built features, so check trail ratings and signage at the base before you drop in, and ride within your comfort while you learn the mountain.

Whatever your skill level, the point here is the same one Mills keeps coming back to. Take the lift, ride down, do it again, and let the repetition turn nervous first attempts into something that feels like flying.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

When does Hatley Pointe Bike Park open and where is it located?

Hatley Pointe Bike Park opens for its inaugural season on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at Hatley Pointe Mountain Resort in the mountains north of Asheville. The park sits on the same resort known to longtime locals as a winter ski destination, now expanding into warm-weather use. The first phase was designed and built by Elevated Trail Design, a trail-building company based in nearby Marshall. Because the resort already operated a chairlift for skiing, the park is lift-served, meaning riders take the lift to the summit rather than pedaling up. Check the resort's website for opening-day hours, lift ticket pricing, and rental availability before you go.

How many trails does the Hatley Pointe Bike Park have?

The first phase of Hatley Pointe Bike Park includes 12 trails connected by three primary descents from the summit. That layout gives riders several ways down the mountain and lets them mix and match routes rather than repeating the same line every run. Builder Peter Mills of Elevated Trail Design describes the trails as action-packed, with a deliberate blend of natural-style terrain and more sculpted bike-park features that he compares to a dirt roller coaster. This is only the opening phase of a longer-term vision, so additional trails and terrain are expected to be added in future seasons as the park grows.

What is lift-served mountain biking and why does it matter?

Lift-served mountain biking means a chairlift carries you and your bike to the top of the mountain so you can focus entirely on riding down. Special carriers mounted on the lift hold the bikes during the ride up. The advantage, according to builder Peter Mills, is repetition. Instead of pedaling to the summit again and again, riders can lap the same trail and the same features many times in a day, building confidence and technique far faster. That makes it ideal for progression, whether you are learning a new jump or dialing in a berm before taking those skills to other parks and trails across the region.

Is Hatley Pointe Bike Park good for beginners or only experienced riders?

The park is built around the idea of progression, which generally serves a range of skill levels. With 12 trails and three descents, riders can choose lines that match their comfort and step up gradually. The lift-served format is especially friendly to newer riders, since the chairlift removes the exhausting climb and lets you practice a single feature repeatedly until it feels natural. That said, this is the opening phase of a bike park with real bike-park features, so trail difficulty will vary. Confirm trail ratings, signage, and any recommended gear with the resort, and consider a lesson or guided session if you are new to lift-access riding.