Galbraith

Galbraith is one of the most beloved trail networks in the Pacific Northwest, and it is also, legally and actively, a tree farm. In 2018 the City of Bellingham paid $2.75 million in Greenway funds, with another $250,000 from the Whatcom Land Trust, for easements from Galbraith Tree Farm LLC guaranteeing public recreation on up to 65 miles of trail in perpetuity. The same easements explicitly protect, preserve, and promote the owner’s commercial forestry, so the mountain with 205 trails and 77.8 miles of singletrack remains a working logging operation, and the logging company can close any part of it to cut trees.

The map traces that whole tangle through the contours. The contour lines show a long, broad ridge with trails wrapped around every flank, descents stacked shoulder to shoulder on the side above town and climbing routes threading the gentler grades. At this density the network reads almost like topography itself, which is fitting for a mountain where nearly every fall line has a trail on it.