After-Hours event preps Silver Valley for summer recreation

WALLACE — The Silver Valley Chamber of Commerce held an after-hours event at Oliver’s Mercantile in Wallace, Thursday night to talk about outdoor recreation and upcoming events in the Silver Valley. Representatives from the Trail of the Coeur d’Alenes, Old Mission State Park, Silver Mountain and the CDA Bike Company came to speak briefly with those in attendance about the local recreation scene.

William Niska, Park Manager at the Old Mission State Park spoke to the group about the Historic Skills Fair that will take place June 18 and 19.

“We will have vendors from all over the state, we will also have demonstrations of old-time crafts like spinning, pottery, jewelry and more. We have the Frontier Rangers who will be shooting off their cannons,” Niska said.

Niska also wanted to point out the potential for future events like stargazing and yoga, and to look forward to those announcements from the park.

Jeff Colburn, general manager of Silver Mountain and Galena Ridge Golf Course spoke about the incredibly full summer that the mountain is planning for.

“In the ‘if we can’t beat them, we join them,’ we are skiing this weekend,” said Colburn with a cheer from the crowd. This is in reference to Silver Mountain normally gearing up for opening the bike park, yet with the winter weather conditions the area has had, they are open Memorial Day Weekend for skiing and boarding.

“We just had too much snow. We talked about the decision whether we should open both, yet eventually decided to just focus on one. There are only a couple of runs that we won’t be able to have running in the Chair 2 basin.”

The bike park is expected to open next weekend on June 4.

Silver Mountain will host the North American Enduro Cup from June 10-12, with the next weekend June 18-19 hosting the Silver Kings Hard Enduro motorcycle race.

Looking months into the future, Silver Mountain will continue to sponsor the fireworks show for July 4 in Kellogg, Brewsfest will be Aug. 13 and Silveroxx Mountain Bike Festival Sept. 23-25. Galena Ridge golf course is open, and playing well.

Chris Caro, one of the owners of CDA Bike Company began by extending a thank you to the crowd for accepting their business in the Silver Valley.

“I can’t explain how much we enjoy being here, and our employees enjoy being here,” said Caro, who is part-owner of the business with Alex Castagno.

“The bike shop in Kellogg is in its second year. We do sales, service, rentals and we try to do as many community events as we can. This is a very exciting place to be,” Caro said. “What makes us most excited is that we have our employees buying houses here, wanting to stay and be a part of the community. That is our driving force.”

For updates on the events put on by the Silver Valley Chamber, visit https://www.silvervalleychamber.com/