The Trail Builder
A conversation with Brock Lowery of Ironwood Outdoors
By Martín Fernández
It seems just like yesterday when I was out hiking the steep slope of the “Col Du Shade” at Locust Shade Park with Brock Lowery of Ironwood Outdoors. Our “reconnaissance” hike followed a flag line I had previously laid out on the steep hillside, deemed “crazy” by several friends. I asked him if he could cut a “really” narrow bench along the steep flag line.
“It’ll be sketchy” he said, “but we can do it…”
That was back in 2019, and that narrow bench is now one of the signature trails at Locust Shade Park in Prince William County, Virginia. The trail system, which less than six years ago was seldom visited by regional cyclists, is now a destination of choice for many bikers, thanks to the work Brock and his team did to transform the park.
I had a vision for what that place would look like and Brock and his team executed it exceptionally well. When telling him what I wanted, I offered two local trails as examples: Stinger at Meadowood, and Slaughterhouse at Laurel Hill.
Unbeknownst to me, he had built both. I loved the “narrow, old-school” feel, and wanted to replicate that along the Col.
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The narrow entry to the “Col Du Shade.”
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Getting the steep hillside trail started.
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The final narrow bench along the steep hillside.
Brock came my way via a mutual acquaintance, Larry Cautilly, another MORE liaison who had hired Brock’s company, Ironwood Outdoors, to help complete the redesign and build at Fountainhead Regional Park in Fairfax County, VA. Once we started working together, we quickly developed a productive rapport that turned into a genuine friendship.
In order to save a few dollars on the build, I offered to volunteer and do trail finishing work along with his crew. I had vacation time to burn and could not find a better way to spend it than helping build the trails I knew I would be riding on a regular basis. Thus, I spent a considerable amount of time tagging along, all the while learning and helping make the trails at Locust Shade a reality. Finally, when it came time to expand and build out the 95th Street trail, also at Locust Shade, I reached out to Brock again.
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A rider enjoying “Tres Hombres,” the drop line built by Brock and his team at 95th St.
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The 95th St. bench cut, masterfully built y Brock and his Ironwood Outdoors team.
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The “Off Ramp.” One of several wood features crafted by Ironwood Outdoors at 95th St.
Brock hails from Warrenton, VA. After graduating high school he left home to attend Western State College in Gunnison, CO where he earned a degree in Recreation Outdoor Leadership. “I knew that I wanted to work and be outside, and this was the path towards that,” he told me. What he didn’t know was that it would ultimately lead him to a career building multi-use trails.
His love for the outdoors and cycling brought him back to Harrisonburg shortly after he graduated. The “Burg” was the closest thing to a Colorado mountain town close to home, so after an internship with Chris Scott of Shenandoah Mountain Touring, he decided to call the place home. It’s here where the trail building seed was planted. Brock volunteered with the Shenandoah Bicycle Coalition and helped operate machinery while working on the Western Slopes trail system. He helped with maintenance and build work at Stokesville, and did a lot of riding in the area. It was at Jack Brown's in downtown Harrisonburg, that he struck a conversation with Rich Edwards, then with the IMBA Trail Solutions Crew, and got a job “line burning” the newly built trails at Raystown Lake.
Brock did tons of laps along the new system on an off road motorcycle mimicking the motions of a bike. “We weren't shredding the place,” he told me, “we were just using the heavy bikes to settle the newly machine-built trails before they opened. Having a 200lb rider on a 300lb bike doing multiple laps in a short period of time on a 30+ mile trail system helped get them ready,” he added. “It would have taken hundreds of bike riders to replicate the effort over a much longer period of time.”
WHM Hospital woodwork, Front Royal, VA
With the work at Raystown under his belt, Brock quickly became a contractor for IMBA and worked all over the country with the IMBA Trail Solutions team building sweet singletrack as far away as Oklahoma. That’s the time when he also worked our neck of the woods and built the Slaughterhouse trail at Laurel Hill and Stinger at Meadowood and the original Tillman West downhill in Stokesville. It’s during this period that he married and settled back in Warrenton.
“With our first child on the way, I didn’t want to travel as much,” he said. “I wanted to be closer to home and do more regional work.” That’s when Brock started to invest in equipment and began collaborating with other regional trail builders. “I learned a lot from the work I did with the IMBA Trail Solutions crew; including Rich Edwards and Dan Hudson,” he mentioned. Also, “Ed Sutton of Trail Dynamics was a mentor and sponsored me to become a member of theProfessional Trail Builders Association(PTBA)."
…variety, executing our customer’s visions and building all kinds of trails is what makes me enjoy what I do so much.
“I’m listed on PTBA and get a lot of business through there, but a lot of our work is from returning customers, like MORE, private landowners, and word of mouth. I love building all kinds of trails,” he told me. “Variety is what keeps things interesting, so we try to do design work, machine/mechanized built trials, hand trail construction, accessible trails and lots of wood work.” The varied work has also helped Ironwood outdoors build other kinds of “trails.” Brock and his team were recently hired to build not only a bicycle skills/pump track, but also an RC track in Luray, VA. “That was the first time we tackled a small project like that,” he told me. “It ended up being a lot of fun, and turned out really good for the small remote control cars.”
The RC Track ended up being a lot of fun and turned out really good for the small remote control cars.
“The work we’ve done has allowed us to expand Ironwood Outdoors into Ironwood Contracting. With my partner, Matt White, we are now working to scale up so that we can have multiple trail crews working across the region and are seeking out larger projects.”
“We want to do it smartly though, and don’t want to spread ourselves too far apart,” he told me. “Finding a good balance so we can continue to do great and meaningful work is our goal.”
Trail surfacing projects in Virginia.
Despite the “scaling up,” Brock is still very hands on. “I love being outdoors building trails, especially the kind I like to ride,” he said. “The types of trails in Harrisonburg have always been some of my favorites. A long climb to a ridge ride to a screaming descent and then back to the start point along a gravel road. Those narrow old-school ridgelines are the best and I try to replicate that where I can. Still, variety, executing our customer’s visions and building all kinds of trails is what makes me enjoy what I do so much.”
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Rebuilding the “jump line” at Wakefield Park in Annandale, VA.
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Rebuilding the “berms” at Wakefield Park in Annandale, VA.
The microcosm that is Locust Shade encompasses many of the characteristics that Brock mentions above and what has made him and the Ironwood team successful.
If you ride a bike in Northern Virginia and surrounding area, chances are you have ridden a trail Brock and the Ironwood Outdoors team has built, repaired or maintained. Here are a few of the regional destinations he and his team have worked on over the years:
Stokesville - Original Tillman West
Massanutten Western Slopes
Fountainhead Regional Park
Patapsco Valley State Park
Lake Fairfax Park
Laurel Hill
Wakefield Park
Locust Shade Park
Meadowood Recreation Area
James Long Regional Park
Cosca Regional Park
Raystown Lake, Allegrippis Trails
