War Eagle Camp opens soon with donated trails

Six miles of mountain bike trails will greet more than 4,000 campers who visit Camp War Eagle this summer.

The camp will open for the season at the end of the month and run for 10 weeks. The Walton Family Foundation funds the camp and covers camper fees on a sliding scale based on parents' income.

Progressive Trail Design in Fayetteville and Crossland Construction Company in Rogers developed the trails at cost, said Peter Day, camp director. The Walton Family Foundation then donated about $195,000 to cover the project.

The camp has a mountain bike program, but it has lacked adequate trails, Day said. The program mostly has been taught in parking lots and roads located in the camp, which is nestled next to Beaver Lake not far off of Arkansas 12 southeast of Rogers. The camp already owns about 40 mountain bikes for the program.

"The trails are going to make this program more attractive to campers," Day said. "This has more appeal than riding on a concrete road."

The three trails range in difficulty levels from beginner to advanced, Day said.

Caleb Whorton, 11, zipped through a portion of the beginner trail with his brother, Jacob, on Thursday. Their father works at the camp and they live there throughout the year. Beaver Lake peeked through the trees surrounding the trail as the brothers tackled obstacles such as bridges and small ramps.

A drop at the end of one of the ramps is fun, Caleb said.

"The first time is a little scary," Caleb said. "I think the campers are going to love it."

Children who attend Camp War Eagle come from all walks of life, Day said. Almost every demographic attends the camp, he said.

"The population is a slice of Northwest Arkansas," Day said.

Campers range from age 7 to 17 and come from Benton, Washington, Carroll and Madison counties, Day said.

Nathan "Wood" Woodruff, Progressive Trail Design president, said the company is developing a program focused on building mountain bike trails for children. Plans are in the works to make it a nonprofit arm of the company, he said.

"The goal is to get these little kid bike parks into schools, camps and underdeveloped communities in the nation," Woodruff said.

The company recently constructed a mountain bike playground at cost for Holt Middle School in Fayetteville and is working with the Bentonville School District on future plans.

Camp War Eagle fits the idea of where the company wants to put these parks, Woodruff said.

"It is a camp focused on connecting to the outdoors and building independence and confidence," Woodruff said. "They are everything that we are trying to push with the playground concept."

It is important to expose children to options such as mountain biking, Woodruff said.

"The youth is the future," Woodruff said. "I think you can get a kid on a bike and have it really change their lives. It changed our lives at Progressive in dramatic ways."

Misty Murphy, Northwest Arkansas Council regional trails coordinator, said the trails at Camp War Eagle are the latest efforts from the community to engage a younger audience in mountain biking.

Multiple school districts in the region have received money from the Walton Family Foundation to start mountain bike programs in their schools in recent years. This includes the Springdale, Fayetteville and Bentonville school districts, she said.

"This gives children the opportunity to get back to nature and grow their bodies in a healthy way," Murphy said. "It is not the only way to do that, but it is a fun way to do it."

The programs also expose children to the growing culture of mountain biking found in Northwest Arkansas, Murphy said. The region is known as a premier mountain biking destination in the country, she said.

"We don't have the altitude that some places have," Murphy said. "You can ride here year round."

There are about 200 miles of soft surface trails in Northwest Arkansas, Murphy said. People travel from all over the country to bike some of the trails including Slaughter Pen in Bentonville and Mount Kessler in Fayetteville, she said.

NW News on 05/16/2015

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