Next week, island residents will have the opportunity to learn and offer feedback about the Vashon Mountain Bike Association’s (VMBA) proposal to build public mountain biking trails through parts of Dockton Forest. With support from King County Parks and a community partnership grant, the group has a three-phase plan to create dedicated mountain biking trails of varying degrees of difficulty throughout the popular recreation area.

“We want to build something that can be used by the whole community, that will meet this need, but won’t change the status quo of the existing trails,” said VMBA representative Larry Dubois.

While it might come as a surprise that this island, which hosts an annual bike race boasting over 10,000 feet of vertical climb is lacking in mountain bike trails, Dubois explained that the existing trails simply can’t support the development and growth in popularity that have taken place in the sport over the years.

Ultimately, this has led to people taking matters into their own hands by creating makeshift trails or, as in Dubois’ case, finding somewhere else to go.

“My friends won’t come to Vashon because of the lack of trails here, so I spend an hour and-a-half commuting off-island every weekend,” he said.

Dubois — who teaches humanities, mountain biking and outdoor survival at McMurray Middle School — noted that the options for the island’s younger mountain bikers, however, are even more limited.

“As it is, everyone leaves the island to go mountain biking,” he said, “but the kids. …They aren’t drivers. They should still have the opportunity to be able to do this.”

Those who frequent Dockton Forest’s hiking and walking trails have probably seen some of the makeshift mountain bike paths, as well as the county’s efforts at getting rid of them, as they’re not legal. But as luck would have it, that is what ultimately brought King County Parks and Vashon’s mountain bikers together.

According to Dubois, the Vashon Forest Stewards’ Dave Warren, who works part-time for the county during the summer, was the one who had to get rid of the homemade mountain bike trails and subsequently identified that there was a need. He approached Dubois, who reached out to his fellow island mountain bikers, and the VMBA was born.

“We’re still in the process of developing as an organization,” Dubois said. “We’re just a group of riders who came together to find a way to fulfill this need.”

The group currently has a six-member board, and Dubois said that some meetings have seen over 50 people attend to discuss this issue.

Warren put the VMBA in touch with King County Parks’ David Kimmett, who was able to steer the group toward the community partnership grant.

“This was kind of an ideal project that these (community partnership grant) funds are earmarked for,” Kimmett said.

The partnership grants are available to help the county work with local residents and nonprofit organizations to complete enhancement projects, such as the picnic shelter at Island Center Forest. The key for this type of grant is that the labor is all volunteer, typically supplied by the group that applied. So in this case, the VMBA will be responsible for building the trails, with the county providing technical guidance and any materials needed.

Kimmett noted that the county is currently prepared to fund phase one of the proposal from VMBA. One of the biggest selling points has been that the proposal does not eliminate trail opportunities for non-mountain bikers — the new trails will go between the existing ones. Kimmett said that it’s possible that one or two could be moved or rearranged to make everything fit well, but other than that, the idea on both sides is to add to the forest’s recreational opportunities, not to take any away. After phase one, both parties will take stock of how the new trails are working out and proceed from there.

“They can probably get it done in about a year,” Kimmett said. “After that, we’ll assess how it’s going and consider funding phases two and three.”

The phases are differentiated simply by their location within the Dockton Forest site.

The meeting on Tuesday will give the VMBA the chance to present its proposal to the public and the county a chance to gather input from the community. There will be a second meeting in December where the final recommendation will be presented based on the feedback obtained from this initial presentation.

“I’m very excited about it,” Dubois said. “This project brought us (VMBA) together. We will grow from this moving forward.”

The first meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 17, in the cafeteria at Vashon High School.