Your 2017 Mountain Bike Trail Bucket List

[Sombeech]

What are the trails you need to ride this year? Not just trails you've never done, but some old favorites too.

It's been a few years since I've ridden Wasatch Crest. Glenwild Loop is another one.

For those I've never been on, hopefully this is the year for:



Porcupine Rim / the Whole Enchilada
any trails in Fruita Colorado
the new additions to the JEM Trail
Nephi's Twist, near Virgin
The Bountiful B downhill trail
Ben Lomond

[neilether]

After a summer of convalescence last year, I'm ready to do some big rides. So far on my list:

Logan Canyon Sampler v6.0
Circumnavigation of Ben Lomond Peak
WOW Trail
Fruita Fat Tire Festival
AF Canyon.

[Sombeech]

For the Ben Lomond ride, I might set up a shuttle that takes us up to Willard Peak, then picks us up at the North Ogden Divide, or even at the bottom of the paved road in North Ogden (or even the Ogden Valley side in Liberty). Yeah, it's cheating, but I'll be hauling up a lot of gear including my drone, and I don't want to spend the whole day on the climb.

I'd love to get some shots of the white mountain goat herd up there near the peak, I think they would look incredible from the air. Then riding down along the top ridge, I'm thinking those shots would be awesome from the drone, seeing the whole valley in the background.

So currently, if I can only make one of these bucket list rides happen, it would be the Ben Lomond ride this summer.

I've noticed that most of my motivation for mountain biking these days, is the type of video and photo footage it would provide. Are my priorities mixed up? It's hard to tell.

[neilether]

For the Ben Lomond ride.....

We've been wanting to do the whole loop for a couple years now. Plan is to start at the bottom of hte Divide road and head clockwise around the loop.

-North Ogden BST
-Willard BST
-Up Perry Canyon
-Across and up to Ben Lomond Peak
-Down Northern Skyline
-Down whatever the trail is that parallels the Divide road.

It's gonna be a doozy.

[twotimer]

The first week of August I'll be hiking for a week near Pagosa Springs here in Colorado...I'll take a day and ride Phil's World near Cortez. It's supposed to be awesome.

Check out this Moab trip... Adventuretrekkers.com. I'll be there and you'll be able to ride anything you want, although the Whole Enchilada may be snowed in at the very top. This gathering is a lot of fun.

[Sombeech]

Another trail I've done but I'd love to get some great drone footage of this time, is Thunder Mountain just outside of Bryce Canyon. Man oh man I salivate at the thought of shooting it in 4k

Here's my Thunder Mountain video that made "GoPro Video of the Day", I'm not sure if they do anything like that anymore but it was pretty cool to be highlighted by GoPro like that.

Back when 720 resolution was cool.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hq_m_XNyo0c

[neilether]

.....Thunder Mountain just outside of Bryce Canyon....

I've still yet to ride this one, but we have a plan to ride this trail as part of a trail exploration adventure down in that same area. There is a ~100 mile singletrack trail system down there called the Grand View Trail. The Thunder Mountain trail is the north west terminus of that trail. From the scant information available, this trail is used as part of a 200 mile bikepacking "race", or at least it was in the past. I'm not entirely sure if they still run the race or not. We would camp in the middle and do two 50 mile shuttles on consecutive days.

We are expecting rough trail, downed trees, bushwhacking, hike-a-bike, and some pretty amazing views!

Sounds fun aye!?! :haha:

[Sombeech]

I've still yet to ride this one, but we have a plan to ride this trail as part of a trail exploration adventure down in that same area. There is a ~100 mile singletrack trail system down there called the Grand View Trail. The Thunder Mountain trail is the north west terminus of that trail. From the scant information available, this trail is used as part of a 200 mile bikepacking "race", or at least it was in the past. I'm not entirely sure if they still run the race or not. We would camp in the middle and do two 50 mile shuttles on consecutive days.

We are expecting rough trail, downed trees, bushwhacking, hike-a-bike, and some pretty amazing views!

Sounds fun aye!?! :haha:

Ha ha, well I am known to walk my bike now and then.

That sounds like a great time. Just don't go too early, people think because it's Southern Utah that it's always dry, but they do get a lot of snow at that elevation down there.

[neilether]

Ha ha, well I am known to walk my bike now and then.

That sounds like a great time. Just don't go too early, people think because it's Southern Utah that it's always dry, but they do get a lot of snow at that elevation down there.

Yep. Supposedly if we wait until fall, it is more likely that the majority of deadfall will have been cleared by then.

[twotimer]

Yep. Supposedly if we wait until fall, it is more likely that the majority of deadfall will have been cleared by then.Well ya better hope, huh? 50 miles in a day? Perhaps it would be good to poke in on it this summer with scouting missions?

Sounds like an awesome ride if it's doable.