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CHISHOLM— The popular Redhead Mountain Bike Park at the Minnesota Discovery Center has won two statewide awards for innovative redevelopment in the past three weeks. In late March, the …
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CHISHOLM— The popular Redhead Mountain Bike Park at the Minnesota Discovery Center has won two statewide awards for innovative redevelopment in the past three weeks. In late March, the Minneapolis-based Environmental Initiative announced it had selected the Redhead as the winner of its 2022 Rural Vitality Award. The award will be officially presented on May 18.
The Environmental Initiative Awards program provides annual recognition of people and projects that involve working in partnership to advance a healthy environment, a prosperous economy and an equitable society.
Earlier this month, park creators won the Innovation Award presented by Minnesota Brownfields, a nonprofit focusing on redevelopment of former industrial or commercial sites, during a ceremony in St. Paul. The Innovation Award is presented to companies, individuals or organizations employing unique and innovative approaches to redevelopment challenges related to engineering, financing, legal, and community outreach.
About the park
The Redhead Mountain Bike Park, funded primarily by the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (DIRRR), transformed 1,225 acres of idled mine lands into the destination outdoor recreation facility that takes riders deep down into a vast former open pit iron mine.
The park features 25 miles of single-track, natural-surface trails for mountain biking and hiking, as well as canoeing, kayaking, swimming, and paddle boarding in a crystal clear mine pit lake.
The trails, which traverse a reclaimed mine site, include red rock canyons, sky-tinted pit lakes, waterfalls, and forests repopulated by aspen, paper birch, and red pine.
Since opening in 2021, the park has provided area residents and visitors with free access to a world-class outdoor recreation venue, which has attracted new investment in the area to serve the steady stream of visitors to the park. It now draws thousands of cyclists and hikers every year, providing a significant boost to the tourism industry.
Local members of the Iron Range Off-road Cyclists, or IROC, initiated the effort, but it received critical support from the city of Chisholm, the DIRRR, St. Louis County, and the Minnesota Discovery Center.