Mountain Bike Trail POV #85 Swamp Donkey, Kicking Horse. (4K)

I had the pleasure of riding Swamp Donkey a couple of times while visiting Kicking Horse Ski Resort.

First time I was nearly at the bottom of the trail when my pedal snapped clean off at the axle. This nearly put me in the dirt and I'm not sure how it didn't. This mechanical issue somewhat did me a favor as I was able to roll slowly down the new Swamp Donkey Extension and check out some of the bigger jumps without lining them up. I believe this helped me hit them with confidence when it came to this run.

Swamp Donkey starts with a long, fairly flat traverse that has a couple of key features. One being a sick rock feature near the top, another being the giant single which you can scrub over or float over. Both options are fun!

The trail starts to get a bit more serious after it flattens off and there is a small open patch that looks like it’s where people have stopped off to the side. First a nice double, into a longer racer style jump which sets you up for a sizable double. A quick pump single before a big SLOW DOWN sign. You want to listen to that one as the ground drops away from you real fast, hitting that jump at trail speed is not going to be fun.

More traversing across before we get to an option line. Off to the left, a ride around and to the right a big jump face. It’s a fairly big double with an even bigger and forgiving landing. I could easily have been going faster for this one to make it more comfortable. This leads into a decent sized step down before arriving at a tight left hand turn to signify approximately the half way point.

The next little hip jump was one of my favourites. The way it shoots you around one berm, hop out and land in another is super fun! The remained of this section is fairly straight forward, you have plenty of vision of the trail in front and rolling through at trail speed works out just right. One more option line that is a ride around to the right and a small double to the left.

A few more table top jumps before making it to the end! Yew! On to Swamp Donkey Extension!

This trail starts off with a couple of big berms and a steps down into the roll in for the first big jump. You’ll have plenty of speed by staying off the brakes. I braked just a little bit and came up a tiny bit short. Nothing major and the jump is built very forgivingly.

A couple more big and fresh berms as you roll into another sizable jump, this one again you have about the right speed for if you’re rolling trail speed. Around a big left hand berm into another step down, this leads you into a big right hand berm with a shark fin take off at the exit. Super fun stuff.

You roll down into a speed hump, which is followed by a sizeable table top. Trail speed works mint here. The next speed hump needs to be used as much as possible as well as trying to get a couple of pedal strokes in, as the last table is a bit long for trail speed.

A small shark fin to finish off the trail. Yo. Unfortunately for me they had plenty more trail left to build to finish off the new extension, I still had an awesome time and look forward to getting back there in hopes to ride the whole thing top to bottom.

I’ve been enjoying writing these and spending the time to hone in on what I could improve with my riding.

Enjoy!


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Timestamps/Trails:
0:00 - Intro
0:34 - Swamp Donkey
4:00 - Swamp Donkey Extension