As you look up the hill from the event centre, The Playground is on your left - almost as far left as you can go. Ride up the main front-side climb and before you’ve gone very far at all, you’ll notice the signs and the toys. Just about everything you could want is there including three see-saws in a row, each one narrower than the previous. The third one is deviously narrow. Look underneath it too, it has a Fox fork controlling the movement - nice touch. There is a mound below the see-saws, shorter on the left and taller on the right, that feeds into a left handed berm (bigger for the taller side) and straight into the side of this elevated track. You can ride around the track but coming from the berms it becomes a small jump. The elevated track leads to a series of ladder bridges and log bridges. There are three routes, wide, medium and narrow. They all eventually feed back to the entrance where you can ride over two log traverses (one has been there for a year or two, the other is new). Up what used to be the main pathway (they cut a new path for those who don’t want to play) are three or four new obstacles. A couple of step ups and a couple of drop offs. They are shallower on the left and taller on the right. Beware the big drop as it is quite tall but you have no speed coming in so it is a real test of the ability to pop up the front wheel.
Part two of The Playground is higher up the hill. Near the top of the switchbacks (Cockatoo Switchbacks trail) before it dumps you out on the firetrail is a left hand hairpin that opens up to the right. Those on the DH track can also veer further right to get to this space. Four drop off lines greet you - a tiny one on the right, two medium sized ones in the middle, and a pretty serous one on the left. The left-most one isn’t that scary for its height as it has a down ramp that will keep all but the most unlucky from going OTB, but it has a long ladder bridge with a kink in it leading to the drop and it is seriously high before you take the drop. All four drops funnel into a giant left hand wall ride. I like this except for the fact they used saw-cut timber which is more slippery than split timber (the more usual choice for timber features in BC). Sure enough the wall is covered in black rubber marks each one indicating where someone has lost it on the wall and slid - it hurts. Following the wall is a series of fun corners, another wall option (this one on an A line in the middle of a straight section) and then a small version of the final jumps section of the DH course, parallel to and a few metres to the right of the DH course as used last Sunday for the national round.

The Playground is fun. The bottom bit is covered in bark chips so falling is quite soft. The whole thing is well thought out. I look forward to some dry weather so I can play there more. In fact I was supposed to be taking a student there tonight but the rain blew that one.

Oh yeah, I don’t know if it counts as They Playground or not, but there used to be an open section of fire trail level with the top of the four-cross track that is now covered in fun things. First there is a two-lane pump track leading into some table top jumps. From the feel of it the time I rode through there, you can probably get enough speed if you pump it well to clear the table. Then there is a sinuous pump section that was so full of water I didn’t try it. Then there are some new mounds reminiscent of the mounds that were there before only taller.