Qualla: Galbraith Mountain https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 24 Sep 2026 03:34:29 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Galbraith Mountain https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain Galbraith Mountain: Introduction https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain/ Photo credit Emergency Brake, CC BY 2.0. It is a tree farm. That is the thing riders have to keep in mind while descending the best singletrack in Washington: the mountain under the tires is private industrial forest, and the trails exist because a succession of landowners has been willing to let them. Galbraith carries more than sixty-five miles of narrow dirt through three thousand acres of second-growth timber directly above Bellingham, and none of it was built by a parks department. It was cut, bermed, drained and maintained by volunteers, on land somebody else was logging. For most of the trail system's life, the whole arrangement could have ended with a signature.

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Image: Emergency Brake | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/c28u-galbraith-mountain-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Galbraith Mountain: Two Names, Two Summits https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain/ Photo credit Emergency Brake, CC BY 2.0. On the maps it is North Lookout Mountain; nobody calls it that. Galbraith sits between Lake Padden and Lake Whatcom, with the communities of Bellingham on one side and Sudden Valley on the other, and it has two main summits, 1,365 feet and 1,785 feet. Neither is the true high poi...

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Image: Emergency Brake | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/c28u-galbraith-mountain-two-names-two-summits.mp3 0:06 2 full Galbraith Mountain: Built by the People Riding It https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain/ Photo credit Emergency Brake, CC BY 2.0. The trail network began in earnest with a group called the Whatcom Independent Mountain Pedalers - the WHIMPs, an acronym nobody chose by accident - who created and maintained the system under a 2005 contract with the landowner. Today the WMBC, the county's mountain bike coalitio...

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Image: Emergency Brake | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/c28u-galbraith-mountain-built-by-the-people-riding-it.mp3 0:06 3 full Galbraith Mountain: Bought, Defaulted, Handed Over https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain/ Photo credit Emergency Brake, CC BY 2.0. For years the mountain belonged to the Trillium Corporation, about 3,125 acres of it. Then on 1 April 2010, rather than default on a loan held by Polygon Financial Partners, Trillium surrendered the property to Polygon outright. A few thousand acres of Bellingham's favourite moun...

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Image: Emergency Brake | CC BY 2.0

]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/c28u-galbraith-mountain-bought-defaulted-handed-over.mp3 0:06 4 full Galbraith Mountain: Securing the Sixty-Five Miles https://qualla.com/galbraith-mountain/ Photo credit Emergency Brake, CC BY 2.0. In 2018 the arrangement finally got teeth. The City of Bellingham, the Whatcom Land Trust and Galbraith Tree Farm LLC entered a purchase and sale agreement securing public recreational use of up to sixty-five miles of trail, and Bellingham City Council voted to approve it - prote...

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]]> Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/c/2/8/u/galbraith-mountain-wp/c28u-galbraith-mountain-securing-the-sixty-five-miles.mp3 0:06 5 full