💰 $1.1M bike park opens in Fraser

Good morning, Stoke Crew. I've been loving these longer days, nothing better than wrapping up work and still having 4–5 hours of daylight to play outside. Hope you've all been getting out there too! Alright, let's dive into some cool stories from the outdoor world. Enjoy! Stay STOKED - Tyler

In today's report

• 🎿 First ski descent of a 20,000 ft Peruvian peak
• 🚴🏼‍♀️ Lael Wilcox going for the outright around-the-world record
• 🚲 Fraser just opened a $1.1M community bike park
• 💰 Blue Lakes fee proposal opens for public comment
• 💼 Kona bikes under new management

Today's Stoke Stories

💪 3 athletes, 3 different ways to suffer beautifully

🎿 British alpinist Fay Manners and Italian partner Marco Malcangi just opened a brand new ski-mountaineering line in Peru's Cordillera Blanca, descending 2,900 ft of steep, heavily crevassed glacier on the southwest side of Ranrapalca (20,216 ft). They named the route Acceso Momentáneo, "Momentary Access," because the glacier conditions that made it possible may not last another season.

• The pair arrived in Peru on May 18 with no fixed objective, just the goal of exploring the range with local guide Cesar Vicuña. After skiing Vallunaraju (18,655 ft) as an acclimatization lap, they spotted the line dropping from the col between Ranrapalca and Ocshapalca. According to Vicuña, no one had climbed it since a Swiss team in 1980.
• They started at 1 a.m. on May 27, climbed through the night across fragile snow bridges and exposed ice, summited on May 28, and then skied the full line back to the glacier. The descent earned a 5.1 E3 grade, big-mountain ski code for very serious, very exposed terrain.
• Here's the wild part: Manners only learned to ski in 2016 after moving to Chamonix. She picked it up specifically to access steeper alpine terrain. Less than ten years later, she's opening new ski descents on 6,000-meter Andean glaciers.

Why It Matters: Big mountain skiing in the Andes barely makes the news cycle in North America, but the Cordillera Blanca is one of the most badass ranges on earth. A 900-meter first descent on a 6,000-meter peak deserves more attention than it gets.

🚴🏼‍♀️ Lael Wilcox is about to chase the outright around-the-world cycling record. She rolls out from Chicago's Buckingham Fountain on Sunday morning, June 7, riding east with the goal of beating Mark Beaumont's 2017 mark of 78 days, 14 hours and 40 minutes. To do it, she'll average a punishing 240 miles per day across 18,000 miles and four continents.

• Wilcox already holds the women's around-the-world record from her 2024 ride (108 days, 12 hours, 12 minutes), but this attempt is a different animal entirely. The 2024 ride was self-supported and intentionally scenic, with daily stops to visit people along the route. This time she's running a full support crew, a flatter route, and an explicit focus on efficiency.
• The bike is a Specialized S-Works Roubaix with Future Shock, SRAM RED AXS, a 48/35 chainring with 170mm cranks, a 10-36 cassette, Zipp 202 / 454 NSW wheels, and aero clip-ons. Pretty much the optimization spec for sustained 12-plus hour days in the saddle.
• Her partner Rue Kaladyte is behind the camera shooting a feature-length film of the attempt.

Why It Matters: Lael sees this attempt as a chance to push back on a stubborn double standard. Ultra-endurance cycling is one of the rare arenas where women can compete directly against men, but their abilities are still constantly questioned. By chasing an around-the-world record, a feat that needs no explanation, she hopes to prove what's possible, connect with communities along the way, and inspire women and girls everywhere to think bigger!

Local Stokelight

🎉 Two Colorado openings worth knowing!

🚲 The town of Fraser officially opened its long-awaited $1.1 million community bike park at Cozens Ranch Open Space on May 30. Roughly 300 people showed up for the ribbon-cutting on a cool, sunny Saturday morning, then proceeded to spend the day lapping the paved pump track, jump lines, and skills area. The park is free, open to all ages and abilities, and sits right alongside U.S. 40 between Fraser and Winter Park.

• Funding came from a mix of donations, town contributions, sponsorships, and grants, including $389,000 from Great Outdoors Colorado and $250,000 from CDOT's Revitalizing Main Streets program. Project partners included Headwaters Trails Alliance, the Fraser Valley Metropolitan Recreation District, Fraser Valley Mountain Bike Alliance, Trestle Bike Park, and Skinny Traffic Trails.
• The whole thing sits inside a 120-acre protected open space along the Fraser River that's been on the books since the 2018 Fraser River Corridor Master Plan. It's exactly the kind of small-town public investment that makes Grand County a awesome place to live and visit!

Why It Matters: GOCO and CDOT grants did the heavy lift on funding here. Without that kind of public-money architecture, $1.1 million worth of features just doesn't happen for a town the size of Fraser. This is what state grant programs are supposed to look like in action.

🏂 Woodward Copper's Summer Hike Park reopens this Friday, June 5, and for the first time it'll run four days a week instead of three. Park rats can now lap the hike-access setup Thursday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., as long as snow conditions hold. The Barn, Woodward's 20,000-square-foot indoor training facility, opens the same day for summer drop-ins.

Recreation

🌲 Permits incoming at Blue Lakes

💰 The Forest Service just opened public comment on a new fee proposal for one of Colorado's most beloved alpine destinations: Blue Lakes in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness. Under the plan, peak-season visitors would pay $5 per person for a day-use permit and $25 per site for overnight camping, plus Recreation.gov processing fees. The fees would kick in during the 2027 peak season (June 1 to September 30), not this summer.

• Blue Lakes draws an estimated 35,000 visits a year, which has caused real damage: crowded trailheads, trampled vegetation, and human-waste issues. The Ouray Ranger District has been rolling out a three-phase Visitor Use Management Plan since 2025, with Phase 1 already delivering rebuilt parking, a new restroom, and restoration at the lower lake.
• New rules already in effect for 2026 (no fees yet, but real requirements): camping is banned at the middle and upper lakes, overnight groups are capped at six people, IGBC-approved bear-resistant food storage is required, and human waste must be packed out.
• Public comment runs from June 1 through August 31. Email comments go to [email protected].
• The eventual limited-entry permit system in Phase 3 is expected to cap day hikers at 40 per day and overnighters at 24.

Why It Matters: Fee proposals on iconic public lands always feel sideways at first. But 35,000 visits a year on a single chain of alpine lakes isn't sustainable and the alternative to managed access is the slow decay of the raw beauty of the place itself.

Business

🚲 A new CEO at Kona bikes

💼 Kona Bicycles just named Charles Russell as its new President and CEO, effective June 1. Russell takes over from co-founder Jake Heilbron, who built the company with Dan Gerhard in 1988. Both founders are stepping back from day-to-day operations but staying on as directors and shareholders.

• Russell isn't new to Kona. He joined in spring 2025 as Chief Revenue Officer and has been running the commercial side ever since the founders reacquired the brand from Kent Outdoors in May 2024. Before Kona, he held senior roles at Rocky Mountain, Yeti, Cannondale, Sugoi, and POC.
• Industry watchers are calling this the start of Kona 3.1, the next chapter after the founders' post-buyback. Russell has been part of a broader leadership rebuild that also brought in Scott Vogelmann (VP of Product, ex-Cannondale and Trek), Chris Newlin (VP of Sales, ex-Rocky Mountain and POC), and CFO Scott Bly.

Why It Matters: Private equity has chewed through independent bike brands over the past five years. Revel, YT, and Kona itself. PE saw a quick cash grab during the bike boom: buy up bike brands, strip out the people and character that made them special, then squeeze every last dollar before moving on.

Kona is a core brand. So when the original founders pulled it back from Kent and are now handing the keys to a longtime industry guy, that's a real victory!

What else is going on

• Front Range u-pick flower farms open for summer including Garden Sweet in Fort Collins, Gather Mountain Blooms in Colorado Springs, and Yetman Farms in Lakewood.
• Yosemite holds 10 unsolved missing person cold cases according to NPS, more than The Grand Canyon and Great Smoky Mountains combined.
• Yosemite removed seasonal winter fishing closures to allow year-round fishing in Valley and Hetch Hetchy, but California Fish and Wildlife says it wasn't consulted on the change.
• Colorado's Free Fishing Weekend runs June 6-7 with license and Habitat Stamp requirements waived for residents and nonresidents at 1,300 lakes and 6,000 miles of streams.
• Pine beetle outbreak grew 148% in Colorado from 2024 to 2025, fueled by record-low snowpack and warm winter, threatening ski resort tree runs and Front Range ponderosa forests.

📚 Trailhead Trivia

This is the tallest peak in the Americas, can you name it?

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Answer!

Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas and the tallest peak outside of Asia, standing at 6,961 meters (22,838 feet). It sits in the Andes range in Argentina's Mendoza Province, near the Chilean border, and is one of the Seven Summits.