Ride Guide: Park City, Utah

The 400-plus miles of trail that surround Park City sprawl, as even a quick glance at a trail map will reinforce. That spaghetti-like scrum of routes can overwhelm a first-time visitor. The good news: despite that sprawl, the trail network in Park City is remarkably interconnected. Riders can hop a bus to Deer Valley Resort, lap lifts all day, and then, from the top of Sterling Express, descend some 2500 vertical feet of immaculate singletrack back into downtown. (In fact, by taking a shuttle from the Salt Lake City International Airport, it’s possible to visit Park City as a completely car-free bike vacation.)

It'd take a lifetime to explore every permutation of routes in Park City. But the following guide will point you in the right direction, whatever your riding style.

Cross Country

Cross-country trails make up the bulk of Park City’s trail infrastructure; picture riding here, and long, buttery-smooth singletrack angling across alpine meadows and aspen groves is likely what comes to mind.

Lost Prospector is the prototypical Park City trail system: accessible right from downtown, Lost Prospector, Masonic and their connectors traverse slopes of sagebrush and scrub oak, occasionally dipping into a ravine or tackling a punchy rock garden. The trails are popular with hikers, dog-walkers and trail runners, but good sight lines and attitudes keep conflicts to a minimum.

For a longer day, begin at Deer Valley Resort's base area and hop on the Mid-Mountain trail. Over the course of two-dozen miles, this IMBA Epic traverses two resorts through stands of aspen and cool spruce forest, ending at the Canyons Village area of Park City Mountain Resort, where cold beers await.

Downhill & Freeride

Although Park City Mountain Resort is the eye of the city's cyclone of blue map squiggles, weaving among the mountain's many bi-directional cross-country trails are plenty of freeride-friendly trails. Steep fall-line "skidders" such as Evil Empire and Black Forest mine the mountain's rich soil and numerous roots for brake-fading fun, and Change Reaction (advanced) and the newly rebuilt Mojave (intermediate) boast big berms and bigger senders.

Deer Valley Resort, one of the country’s longest-running bike parks, opened its lifts to bikes in 1992. And while steep, skinny tracks such as Devo harken back to the days of 26-inch wheels, Deer Valley has no shortage of flow. The duo of Tidal Wave (intermediate) and Tsunami (advanced) have become the resort's signature trails, with massive, manicured tabletops and step-ups. Meanwhile modern, machine-built tech trails, such as Twist & Shout, bridge the generations, with wide, high-speed jumps and tight, high-consequence turns.

Backcountry

Park City’s penchant for buffed-out trails extends to the backcountry on the Slate Creek trail system in the western Uintas, a half-hour east of Park City. The roughly eight-mile Slate Creek – Outer Left Hand Loop – White Fir loop flows through the meadows and the soldier-straight stands of aspen trees characteristic of the Uintas, the highest mountain range in Utah and the only major mountain range in the continental U.S. that runs east-west. The immaculately crafted berms will have you feeling like you're in a bike park and not on the edge of wilderness.

E-bike

Park City is almost universally off-limits to e-bikes. The one notable exception is Clark Ranch, a city-owned parcel on a low shrubby rise just east of town. Whether you're plugged in or not, the tabletops and doubles of Family Truckster and Upper Sparky are worth checking out; the berms, optimized for the higher speeds of e-bikes, encourage riders to open up the throttle. And even on an analog bike, the Upper Sparky climb trail goes by quick.