Video: Northstar at Tahoe's Livewire Trail

The fine folks at Northstar-at-Tahoe’s mountain bike park bring you the world’s first fully irrigated, lift-accessed downhill trail. No longer will you squint painfully to peer through the plume of dust created by the rider in front of you. Or cough up a pound of the dry stuff at the end of the day. Better yet, LiveWire’s tacky dirt will grip and grab tires for optimal traction on its smooth, fast, and flowing 1.8 miles that are packed with tabletops, doubles and berms. This unique downhill run, which opened for business last summer, boasts sprinkler heads positioned every 20 feet. The system links into the resort’s snowmaking water lines, around which LiveWire was constructed. The trail is irrigated every morning during mountain bike season, with an extra lunchtime watering slated for busy weekends. “It can get pretty dry out here in the West. The dirt is the most ideal in places where it rains every day and we wanted to create that effect on a daily basis,” says Kyle Crezee, Northstar’s bike park manager. This trail was modeled after Whistler’s infamous A-Line trail and is built for speed; all rocks were excavated for a super-smooth surface It features a vertical drop of 1,100 feet and more than 45 tabletop jumps, gap options and big, high-speed berms. It’s a welcome addition to the resort’s trail system, which is notoriously steep, loose and filled with technical rock gardens and baby heads. LiveWire is just one leg of the massive $700,000 improvements being made to Northstar’s labyrinth of downhill and XC trails. —Erinn Morgan