BETHEL — Growing local interest in incorporating mountain-bike trails into the plan for Bethel’s Bingham Trust parcel – and using them to bring more tourist dollars to the area – prompted the Bethel Conservation Commission to host a public presentation last week by the director of Vermont’s Kingdom Trails.

The commission is gathering information on what types of trails might be feasible on the 2,400-acre Bingham land.

The BCC invited Tim Tierney, Kingdom Trails executive director, to give an overview of the recreational trail system that has been voted Best Mountain Bike Trail Network in North America by Bike Magazine. The event drew about 50 people.

The Kingdom Trails network, in the poorest region of Vermont, brings nearly $5 million a year in revenue to the area.

The nonprofit trails organization oversees 110 miles of trails in Burke, a town of 1,000 and 14 miles north of St. Johnsbury, in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom.

Tierney said the trails drew about 4,000 people in 2004. This year, 50,000 used it.

The trails are also used for cross-country skiing, hiking and horseback riding. With an eight-month season, mountain biking brings in the most people. While the trails organization is nonprofit, it has helped support and even create local businesses, Tierney said.

In this poor economy, he said, “we know we have saved businesses.”

He said inns, home rentals and other businesses have benefited.

“People are building second homes to be near the trails,” Tierney said. The area has also become a draw for “mountain bike weddings,” he said.

The Kingdom Trails network relies on the participation of 55 private landowners and a cooperative agreement with the adjacent Burke Mountain Ski Resort.

Bethel possibilities

The public Bingham land abuts Sunday River Ski Resort in Newry, making a similar arrangement possible, although likely on a smaller scale.

Sunday River offers steep trails and jumps for the more adventurous bikers, so trails laid out over gentler terrain on the Bingham parcel could complement the Sunday River trails, Bethel Conservation Commission member Landon Fake said after the meeting.

On the Bingham land, “There already exists a network of several miles of logging roads, some of which were built to a high standard,” Fake said. The 2,400-acre Bingham parcel, he said, “is plenty to have a trail network. It’s about the size of the entire Sunday River ski area trail network.

“I doubt you could, or would want to, fit in the 110 miles of trail that KT has. Having several miles of well-made and well-maintained ‘single track’ — an 18-inch-wide dirt path that winds around the valley— seems entirely in keeping with Bingham’s desire for the land to be used for low impact recreation.”

Having the land contribute to the economy of the town, Fake said, “seems especially appropriate. Mountain bike trails are usually easier to build and maintain than hiking trails, because they follow the terrain more and aren’t designed to get the rider to a certain point. They don’t preclude other uses of the land like hiking, hunting and logging. KT closes their trails to biking at the start of deer season.”

Fake said the Bethel Conservation Commission is exploring the options in the context of a 20-year management plan that must be created for the parcel by next year, in keeping with an agreement with the state.

“As the baseline documentation and management plan are written, there needs to be more specific assessment of what areas are appropriate for mountain biking, how it fits with management roads, the protection of wildlife habitat, and the protection of the brook as an emergency water supply [for the Bethel Water District].”

Bingham recreational trails would likely be managed by a separate organization.

“Towns usually aren’t great at managing things like a recreational trail network that is at least partly designed to attract visitors,” Fake said. “So besides a new town ‘authority,’ there would need to be another entity to manage something that was anywhere near the scale of KT. The Kingdom Trail Association is a separate nonprofit that works very closely with the town of East Burke, as well as landowners and the Burke Mountain ski area.”

Fake said the next step would likely be to seek help from the New England Mountain Bike Association in locating potential trails and trail corridors.

And, he said, “the business community, especially the hospitality businesses that would stand to benefit most, will need to put their shoulders to the wheel.”