Since late summer, the stretch of McIlhattan Road between Manley Road and Story Mill Road has been closed to everyone except construction crews. The City of Bozeman's street report for the week of October 25, 2026 says the closure will stay in place until early-to-mid November. The crews are paving the gravel section, fixing slopes and adding stormwater controls.
The material they dig out of the road corridor is going straight onto the hillside next door. That hillside will become Bikefill. The new community bike park's beginner trails, bigger flow trails and slopestyle course are being built from what the road project removes, so the road crew and the trail crew are working on the same timeline.
A hillside that gave its soil to the landfill
Bikefill sits on City land in the northeast corner of Bozeman. Snowfill Recreation Area borders it on the northwest, Story Mill Road on the east, McIlhattan Road on the southwest, and the City's Solid Waste offices and composting facility on the south. The Bikefill Park Master Plan, dated March 2026, describes rolling grassland with few trees, wetlands at the north and south ends that will be protected, and about 200 feet of elevation change. Churn Creek runs along the southern edge.
The plan also explains why the grass out there is mostly Smooth Bromegrass. Years ago the City stripped the parcel's topsoil and used it to cap the landfill next door, leaving "little to no remaining topsoil." An earlier trail bid package from GVLT says the parcel was originally set aside for landfill expansion. The landfill was closed and capped in the 1990s instead, and this ground was quarried for the capping material.
That history shapes the design. Raised beginner trails, big berms and a slopestyle course all need fill dirt, and the site had little to spare. The master plan says certain construction phases "are driven and dependent upon available funding and overburden material from parking lot construction and McIlhattan Road improvements."
Which features need the road's dirt
The plan sorts the trail work into three priority groups. Only the second group depends on fill from the road.
| Priority | What it includes | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Civil work | Paved parking lot, McIlhattan Road improvements, irrigation well, start of the Family Hub | City road project |
| Trail Priorities 1 | Smaller natural-surface flow trails, perimeter cross-country trails, cyclocross features, Upper Hub pavilion | Mostly independent of fill |
| Trail Priorities 2 | Above-grade beginner trails, bigger flow trails, slopestyle course, start of the mid-hill Rider Hub | Fill from McIlhattan Road and the parking lot |
| Trail Priorities 3 | Connector to Snowfill Dog Park, engineered hardened trails, remaining hub landscaping | 2027 and beyond, partly dependent on funding |
The fill-dependent group includes most of what gives Bikefill its range. The beginner trails, a small beginner pump track, skills features and a bicycle playground are planned around the Family Hub at the bottom of the hill. Farther up are intermediate and advanced flow trails, jump and drop zones, more pump tracks and the slopestyle zone. The plan also calls for cyclocross elements with a sand pit, embedded steps and wood ledges, plus adaptive trails, nature play, pavilions, a hammock grove, restrooms and a bike wash and repair station.
Integrated Trail Lab of Bozeman and Terraflow of Whitefish are building the trails. CRO Planning and Design, Design 5 Landscape Architecture, Aspekt Architecture and Design, and Sanbell Engineering are on the design team. According to the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, GVLT leads the park's design, construction and fundraising. The City pays for and oversees the road and civil work. The Dirt Concern, the Bozeman chapter of the Southwest Montana Mountain Bike Association, advises on design and will maintain the technical features.
How the timeline moved into 2027
The City's updates on the Engage Bozeman project page show the schedule moving from 2026 goals to 2027 completion over the course of this year:
- March 2026. The master plan set 2026 goals: finish Trail Priorities 1 and 2, pave the parking lot, drill the well and start the Family Hub.
- April 13, 2026. An update described opening some rideable features that fall as only a "potential."
- June 18 and 23, 2026. GVLT and the City held a ceremonial groundbreaking. The June 23 update said construction was expected to be "fully completed in 2027."
- July 24, 2026. The construction alert confirmed that Knife River would move material from the road corridor onto the site to be shaped into trails. It said the new parking area and pathway would start after the road work, "with a majority of construction to be completed in 2027."
GVLT's project page now puts completion at summer or fall 2027. A September 15, 2026 story from One Valley Community Foundation says construction will continue into 2027, "when the first riders will head out." No specific opening day has been announced.
The July alert lays out the order of work. The parking area and pathway start after the road improvements are done, and the master plan ties the biggest trail features to fill from both the road and the parking lot.
The closure, and the way around it
Right now the road work affects Snowfill visitors more than anyone else. According to the City's October 25 report, Snowfill Recreation Area and Valley View Veterinary Hospital can still be reached from Manley Road. The July construction alert gave the same instructions to anyone coming from downtown.
When the closure began in August, KBZK reported on what it meant for Snowfill visitors, including one detour that went by way of Bridger Canyon Road, Griffin Drive and Manley Road.
The finished road is planned for more than cars. The master plan includes a 10-foot shared-use path along McIlhattan toward the neighborhood and a separate 6-foot gated connector between the Bikefill parking lot and Snowfill. That connector is part of Trail Priorities 3, so it isn't scheduled for 2026.
GVLT development director Justin Barth summed up the three neighboring sites for One Valley: "Snowfill is where dogs can be dogs, Bikefill is where bikers can be bikers, and the landfill is where trash can be trash."
How it was paid for, and what still depends on money
Fundraising for Bikefill has moved faster than construction. Mike and Andrea Manship, longtime fundholders at One Valley, set up a fifty-to-one match: every gift of $10 or more unlocked another $500 from their fund. One Valley reports that more than 800 people gave, raising over $5 million. KBZK reported the project's total cost in August as $6 million, up from the $4.5 million estimate in GVLT's 2025 campaign.
The City's share includes $1.5 million in its FY27 Capital Improvement Plan for the McIlhattan access improvements, according to an April 7, 2026 City Commission memo. That's the road project whose dirt is building the trails.
Some pieces still depend on funding. Priority 3 includes the engineered trails, the finished landscaping around both hubs and the Snowfill connector, and the master plan says some of that work after 2026 depends on funding. GVLT also lists two connections still in progress: a planned path between Bridger Creek Golf Course and Bikefill, and a safe crossing of Bridger Creek to the existing trails along Story Mill Road.
Sacajawea Audubon has finished a baseline bird survey of the site and plans to repeat it every year, as it does in other City parks. The goal is to track how bike traffic and the new trees and shrubs affect birds there over time.
If you own a home on Bozeman's northeast side, near Snowfill, Story Mill or Bridger Creek, you'll see this project change your neighborhood over the next year. Michelle Horning has followed how parks and trail connections like these shape daily life across the Gallatin Valley. If you'd like to talk about what Bikefill and the new McIlhattan path could mean for your part of town, schedule a free consultation.
