A Treehouse That Built a Community

This is an ode to a Treehouse and a trail builder.

More specifically, this is an ode to a guy with a curmudgeonly reputation, with a heart of gold, who happens to own a place I call the Treehouse.

Let’s rewind to 2014. I was living in Seattle and plotting my escape to Bellingham. For years, I’d dreamed of living in the small mountain town, away from traffic, big buildings, noise, and too many people. Bellingham also happened to be the closest “cool” city to British Columbia, and that weighed heavily on my desire to move north. I spent hours each weekend driving to Whistler, Squamish, the Shore, or Bellingham to ride. I figured if I could shave 90 minutes off that drive, that was worth something. And as life threw me the right curveball at the right time, I was ready to move north, but housing was proving difficult to find.

In November of 2014, I was at a now-defunct restaurant in downtown Bellingham called the Copper Hog, visiting a friend. I was lamenting about how hard it was to find a place to live that would allow my dog and have room for bike storage. I didn’t need much living space, but just a cozy place for Roscoe (RIP), me, and a small quiver of bikes. As luck would have it, an acquaintance was sitting a few tables over. My friend Jess looked at me and nodded toward the couple, “TZ has a really cool ADU over his garage. You should see if anyone’s living up there right now.”

TZ, or Todd Zimmerman, was someone I loosely knew through racing downhill bikes. We had many mutual friends, but we weren’t close. He was known as a bit of a lone wolf. Regardless, I cruised up to his table and politely excused myself into the conversation. It probably went something like this.

“Hey guys! Hey TZ! So, I hear you have a cool ADU at your spot.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Know anyone who wants to live there?”

“Yep. Me,” I said.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Yeah. It’s time for me to finally move to the promised land.”

“Well… it’s sort of…quirky,” he said. “You should probably come check it out. It’s definitely not for everyone.”

We planned for me to stop by the next day. It was a small unit over a detached two-bay garage in the woods on the north side of Galbraith Mountain. (The good side. If you know, you know.) I walked up the stairs to the small, roughly 300-square-foot studio. It was one open room with a countertop, a beer fridge, a hot plate, a sink, a toaster oven, a cast-iron skillet, a real wood-burning stove, and a bathroom that resembled a tiny head on a sailboat. The ceilings were high. There wasn’t much room for a bed bigger than a twin, but that was an issue for another day. It would fit a small couch and coffee table, a dog, and me.

“It’s perfect,” I said. “When can I move in?”

One month later, on New Year’s Eve, I hauled my life north from Seattle and into this tiny little space I lovingly called the Treehouse. There was an alcove that could fit a small mattress, but TZ built a platform that extended outward from the intersection of the A-Frame roof and the wall so I could just fit a queen-sized mattress. The ceiling was so low that any unexpected jolt in the night would cause you to smack your forehead and leave a dent. I can attest that it happened to one friend who has notoriously wild night terrors. The dent is still there to this day.

Low sleeping clearance aside, the Treehouse was dreamy. It was a juxtaposition of quiet and wild. At night, with the windows ope,n I could hear coyotes howling, owls hooting, and frogs croaking nonstop. I felt like I lived in the jungle, but it was only a 5-minute drive from town. And the best part? I was about a 90-second ride from a climbing trail that TZ built to access Galbraith. This became my sanctuary. Nearly every day, Roscoe and I would cruise up the Geneva Connector to ride my favorite north side trail, Oriental Express. As he aged, we rode it slower and called it the Old Man Lap. It was a 4-mile loop, and we’d ride it rain or shine or snow, day or night.

Living on the property with TZ was more than just sharing a driveway. His family became my family. I moved in when his daughter, Mabel, was only one month old. I watched her learn to walk, talk, jump on the trampoline, and do all the things that kids do. She was obsessed with flora and taught me all about the different wild plants and mushrooms growing in the yard. I’d take her donuts on the first day of school, and we’d all celebrate holidays together. Todd and Mabel became the family I didn’t have in Washington, and the Treehouse became the home I didn’t know I needed.

During my seven-year occupancy of that tiny little space, my rent was raised a total of $100 from 600 to 700. I heard the latest tenant is paying a whopping 800. There is nowhere else in town you can find a place that awesome for that cheap. Hell, I don’t know if anywhere else in the Northwest has that good of a deal. To keep it fun, sometimes I’d pay the rent by tossing cash out the window as TZ stood below, laughing as the dollars floated whimsically to his feet.

Living in the Treehouse made me a part of the fabric of the Bellingham bike community. We started so many group rides from that front yard. Cars would stuff the driveway and the side of the road. We’d finish our rides with beers and a bonfire at the house. Holidays always brought the local riders without local families to his house for wild festivities. Food fights, wrestling—nothing was off limits. They say home is where the heart is. I say home is when TZ welcomes you into his world. The dude completely changed my life. He gave me a sense of place when I was going through a major life event. He didn’t ask for much, and he let me make that space my own.

But to know TZ is to understand that he’s not your everyday dude. On paper, he’s a 6th-grade math teacher, a dad, and a mountain biker. He’s also a prolific trail builder. If you’ve ridden in Bellingham, you’ve likely ridden his work. His most accessible trail is named after his kid, Mabel, called “Mabel’s Monkey Wrench”: a perfect low-angle flowtech trail that drops you right at the start of the neighborhood climb trail. He built it with his daughter around the start of Covid when there wasn’t much to do besides go insane or go outside. Every day they’d hike up with shovels and rakes and pack in berms, move rocks, and shape what’s become one of the most popular trails in town.

Long before Mabel’s was built, though, Todd was artfully sculpting big foreboding lines out east in Whatcom County. His affinity for Burt Reynolds was made apparent by the trail names “Dirt Reynolds”, “Deliverance”, and “Squeal Like a Pig.” They’re steep, super technical, and have left plenty of bikes and bodies mangled. In another zone, County Girl was built around stunning natural features in a mossy forest. Big rock outcroppings require precision bike handling. The lines are committing. The reward is riding one of the most beautiful trails around.

The trails can be incredibly imposing, but also delightfully fun. A lot like TZ. I’ve always said he builds according to his mood.

You’ll know when you’re riding Deliverance that he was on one during the build. Your forearms burn, and you might shit your pants in a few sections. It’s zesty. But when you ride County Girl, it’s full of eye-catching features and glorious sight lines. He must have had a good year. The same goes for Gnargus, often mistakenly called Waterfall. It runs the gauntlet of flow and brain-breaking tech, ending at a wall of water in a dark, wet, green hole. Gnargus is named after Argus, Todd’s old dog. She loved only him and had a no-fucks-given attitude about everything else. Todd has a no-fucks-given attitude about building the kind of trails that people remember. They leave an impression. It takes a while to nail them, so you keep going back trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together, until eventually you decode his work and discover the dude with full sleeves and “DIG TRAIL” tattooed on his knuckles is maybe a trail-building genius.

***

In the fall of 2021, I wrote my rent check and, in the memo, scribbled, “The Final Frontier,” and with deep, deep sadness, I handed it to TZ and told him to read it. He looked at me with big eyes and asked, “No way. Are you moving out?” After seven of the best years of my life, I’d found a house to call my own in the next neighborhood over. It should have been a supremely happy time, but I was devastated to leave TZ, Mabel, the forest, the sounds of the wild animals, and my perfect little Treehouse. I mourned the loss of my Old Man Laps. Roscoe and I logged over 300 laps on just that one loop during our tenure. It felt like the end of an era.

That spot was more than a home. It was a chapter of my life that gave me so much more than I ever thought possible. It immersed me in nature, it gave me a family I didn’t have, a sanctuary among the owls, and a place where my once-young dog could grow old and find peace. TZ could have asked for a much higher rent, but I think he was seeking a lot of the same things I was. The two tenants that have lived there since I moved out are equally as important in his world. They aren’t there because it’s cheap, they’re there because they have built trust and have become a part of Todd’s chosen family. A part of his family Treehouse, if you will. I honestly can’t think of a better place to call home. It might be the best thing he ever built.