Back in January 2014, we covered what felt like a familiar story from Marin County: a beloved, community-built jump spot caught in the crosshairs of county bureaucracy. The Scott Valley Jumps — also known as the Mill Valley Jumps — had been a fixture of the local riding scene since 1998, already 16 years old at the time and showing no signs of slowing down. We hoped that the story would become a turning point.
It didn’t. But here’s the thing: somehow, against the odds, the jumps survived anyway. Another decade-plus of kids learning to fly, progressing through the beginner line, eventually throwing tricks over the advanced sets. Another decade of parents watching from the sidelines. Another decade of the county looking the other way — until this week, when Marin County sent in the bulldozers and erased the Scott Valley Jumps from the map after nearly 27 years.
Nearly Three Decades of Community. Gone in a Morning.
The Scott Valley Jumps weren’t a reckless act of trail vandalism. As we documented a decade ago, the site was built starting in 1998 by a small group of riders who first cleaned up garbage and dismantled a homeless encampment before ever touching a shovel for a jump. They designed a thoughtful, tiered layout with beginner, intermediate, and advanced lines — a progressive system that invited kids to grow into the sport. No trees were felled. No environment was scarred. Rangers, police, and sheriff’s deputies visited the site over the years and had positive things to say about the design, upkeep, and community atmosphere.
Professional riders came to film video segments there. Mountain bike legend Gary Fisher showed up with a photo crew. Kids who learned their first bunny hops on the beginner line grew up to become the people maintaining it. This wasn’t a rogue spot. It was a community institution — one that kept generations of local kids on bikes, gave them something to work toward, to get good at, to share with their friends…