Outdoors: Off-road riders explore new trails at Rogers' Lake Atalanta

ROGERS -- For a trail that's not open yet, the loop around Lake Atalanta gets plenty of traffic.

Knobby mountain-bike tires leave their mark in the soft dirt of the new trail network that circles the little lake near downtown Rogers. The footfalls of runners and hikers blend with the songs of birds.

Ride Lake Atalanta

A mountain bike ride around Lake Atalanta can start at the Clark Pavilion along East Walnut Street, one-half mile east of downtown Rogers. Trails head out north, south and east of the pavilion.

Lake Atalanta was built in 1936 and formerly supplied Rogers with water.

— Staff report

The 10-miles of trail at Lake Atalanta take visitors, mainly mountain-bike riders, high above the shimmering clear water. Paths meander into forest that few people explored before the trails were made. It's all part of a bigger improvement project by the city of Rogers at Lake Atalanta.

The trails aren't officially open, but bikers are welcome to ride. Traffic packs down the paths and that's good for the trails, said Barney Hayes, Rogers parks director.

"Ninety-nine percent of the dirt trails are finished. There will be some spurs built to connect the soft-surface trails with a concrete trail to be built around the lake," he said.

Riders will find the going easy on some stretches, tougher on others. There are some lung-buster climbs and tight turns. Dips and drops like a roller-coaster give riders the giggles. That's what Misty Murphy and I found out when we hopped on our mountain bikes to circle Lake Atalanta on Jan. 23, a sunny Friday.

Off and pedaling

We started at Clark Pavilion near the south end of Lake Atalanta Park. It was nice to see traffic stop and yield to our bikes when we crossed East Walnut Street and turned left to start a clockwise route around the 30-acre lake.

Right away the trail goes up, up, up on switchbacks the get muscles warmed up lickety-split. At the top, the trail levels out and heads north beneath a rock bluff. The riding is smooth and easy.

"This trail is more dirt and less gravel than some of the other trails we have," Murphy said.

She's regional trails coordinator with the Northwest Arkansas Council and loves to ride and race mountain bikes.

The route stays high above the west shoreline of the lake. We watched people walking their dogs on the paved road below. Fishermen relaxed on the bank and fished for rainbow trout.

After a dip into a hollow, the trail leaves the forest and heads across the Lake Atalanta dam on a paved road and heads back into the woods on the other side.

Up we pedaled to the proverbial fork in the road.

"If we go left it's the Roller Coast Loop," Murphy said. "I've never done it. You?"

Negatory on that. Left we went and soon came to the loop's namesake dips and drops. The short ups and downs are steep enough to send a fast rider airborne. A roller coaster loop indeed.

Back at the bottom, we rode near a grove of walnut trees obviously planted decades ago. The trees are all in a row like crops and of similar size. From here the route climbs gradually to run above Lake Atalanta's east shore.

Keep on riding

Our game plan was to circle the lake and call it a ride, but the warm day kept us going. We checked out another trail south of Clark Pavilion. What we found was the mother of all roller coaster drops.

Sitting on a bike at the edge is like being at the top of a ski jump. The trail drops 30 feet almost straight down, crosses a little plank bridge then heads straight up 30 feet. Murphy coasted into the canyon and hit the top laughing.

"Just go and don't put on your brakes," she hollered.

The drop was a highlight of the ride. Soon the route trail makes a quick U-turn and heads back to Clark Pavilion. Off to the right riders can see a concrete trail being built that leads from downtown Rogers to Lake Atalanta.

Signage and some finish work remains to be done on the soft-surface trail, but the welcome mat is out for mountain bikers and hikers at Lake Atalanta.

Flip Putthoff can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWAFlip

Sports on 02/19/2015

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