Читать книгу Mountain Bike: Park City - Jared Hargrave - Страница 27

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE

This guidebook features 47 routes, starting with Park City and radiating out to surrounding areas from Deer Valley, Canyons Village, and the Utah Olympic Park to Parleys Canyon/Glenwild, Round Valley, and Guardsman Pass. Beyond the Park City core, I include trail networks in neighboring towns like Heber City, Midway, Kamas, and Oakley.

Each route begins with basic information such as elevation gain, mileage, ride type, technical difficulty, and fitness intensity. I then offer a basic overview of the ride, driving directions to the trailhead, and a mileage log of the route marking every major intersection and point of interest. At the end of each route, a final section highlights options or ways you can tailor the featured route to match your preferences or, in some cases, skill level or available time. And, of course, there is a map highlighting the main route and intersecting trails, parking areas, and major roads. Here’s a breakdown of what you’ll find in each route description.

RIDE TYPE

I’ve categorized the routes into five types: a loop, lariat loop, out-and-back, shuttle, or network.

Loop

Just as it sounds, a loop starts and ends at the same trailhead by going around in a circle. Loops use different ascent and descent trails to make the ride circle back to end where it started.

Trailside Bike Park (Route 32) is a great place to learn technical skills and practice bike handling on manmade features.

Lariat Loop

Also known as a lollipop loop, a lariat loop is a cross between an out-and-back and a loop.

Out-and-Back

An out-and-back route follows the same trail up and down, with a turnaround point at some sort of high point or cool destination.

Shuttle

Almost always downhill, shuttle rides are one-way routes for those who want all the gravity thrills without earning it by pedaling uphill. You leave a vehicle at the bottom, then drive to the top of the trail for a bike ride back down.

Network

In Park City, almost every trail is part of a network where I feature a particular loop or ride within the singletrack system. For this book, I use the network category for places like the Deer Valley Bike Park, where I don’t focus on a single route but feature every trail. You can choose your own adventure within a given network.

TRAIL TYPE

Trail type describes the type of trail or trails in a route, such as singletrack, doubletrack, etc. I give a percentage of each trail type in a given route.

DISTANCE

This category outlines the mileage of each route. I’ve rounded the mileage to the nearest tenth of a mile, so you may find your GPS mileage is a bit off from my route descriptions.

ELEVATION GAIN/LOSS

This category indicates the amount of uphill and downhill elevation loss or gain you can expect on a route, given in vertical feet and rounded to the nearest ten. The vast majority of routes in this book (loops) have the same elevation gain and loss. Shuttle rides and lift-served mountain biking have a significant difference, with elevation loss outpacing the gain.

HIGH POINT

High point indicates the highest point above sea level of every ride. This figure sometimes (but not always) indicates the turnaround point for out-and-back rides.

RIDE TIME

Ride time is subjective, as every mountain biker goes at their own pace. I consider myself a mountain biker of average fitness, so for this book I used a range between my own “moving time” and the total ride time that includes time spent stopped for photos, snacks, and simply enjoying the view.

DIFFICULTY RATINGS

The overall difficulty of these rides is broken down into two parts: technical difficulty and fitness intensity. This category is also subjective, as one rider may have no problem banging out a 30-mile ride with 4000 feet of elevation gain, but cringes at the thought of rock drops or steep, rooty sections. On the other hand, many gravity riders don’t blink an eye at launching off giant wood features at the bike park, but are incapable of pedaling an epic backcountry route. Use these ratings to match your technical skill and fitness to find rides that you will consider most enjoyable.

A NOTE ABOUT SAFETY

Safety is an important concern in all outdoor activities. No guidebook can alert you to every hazard or anticipate the limitations of every reader. Therefore, the descriptions of roads, trails, routes, and natural features in this book are not representations that a particular place or excursion will be safe for your party. When you follow any of the routes described in this book, you assume responsibility for your own safety. Under normal conditions, such excursions require the usual attention to traffic, road and trail conditions, weather, terrain, the capabilities of your party, and other factors. Because many of the lands in this book are subject to development and/or change of ownership, conditions may have changed since this book was written that make your use of some of these routes unwise. Always check for current conditions, obey posted private property signs, and avoid confrontations with property owners or managers. Keeping informed on current conditions and exercising common sense are the keys to a safe, enjoyable outing.

—Mountaineers Books

Sharing the Union Pacific Rail Trail (Route 7) with cows as the route passes through a working ranch (Photo by Eric Ghanem)

Technical Difficulty

Routes are categorized into one of four levels of difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and expert. It is very important to know your own skill level when choosing a route to ride. However, sometimes the technical sections of any given trail are short, and you can walk your bike around them. The Spine on the Wasatch Crest (Route 36) is a great example. Most of the Wasatch Crest is intermediate, but I label it advanced because of that one technical section. It’s up to you to decide what is rideable and what warrants a dismount to hike-a-bike.

Beginner: Easy rides with few or no obstacles. The trails are wide, smooth, and flat. There are also no steep sections.

Intermediate: Routes are rougher and narrower, with smaller, unavoidable obstacles that are easy to roll over. Intermediate trails can also be steeper. The vast majority of routes in Park City fall under this category.

Advanced: Narrow and uneven trail tread combined with steeper grades and larger obstacles like rock drops, large roots, and tight corners with loose soil. These routes require advanced skills to clean safely.

Expert: The most difficult trails with very steep grades, continuous uneven tread, large drops, challenging rock gardens, and big, unavoidable jumps. These types of routes are mostly found in lift-served bike parks where body armor and full-face helmets are recommended.

Fitness Intensity

This category is based on a scale of effort to complete a route, quantified by mileage and elevation gain. Some trails are short but steep, while others are very long, but without much climbing. To come up with the fitness rating, I always choose the more difficult rating between mileage and vertical. Again, these ratings are subjective and dependent on a rider’s individual fitness level.

•Easy: 10 miles or less and/or 1000 or less feet of vertical gain

•Moderate: 10–15 miles and/or 1000 to 2000 feet of vertical gain

•Strenuous: 15–25 miles and/or 2000 to 3000 feet of vertical gain

•Very Strenuous: 25–plus miles and/or over 3000 feet of vertical gain

SEASON

Because of Park City’s elevation and mountainous terrain, bike season generally runs from late spring until mid-autumn. Some lower-elevation trails are rideable in early spring, while the highest trails don’t open until July. I’ve indicated the best time of year to ride each route, but that may vary based on the weather and snowpack of any given year.

MAP

Each route in this book includes a simple topographic map, but it’s always a good idea to supplement with other maps. Every year, Mountain Trails Foundation publishes an updated trail map of the entire Park City network; it’s the best map to bring on your ride if you want to link the routes in this book with other trails. The Adventure Maps Salt Lake City, Park City, and the Wasatch is another good resource. If you cannot find another resource, I’ve included the name of the USGS 7.5-minute TOPO maps that encompass each route.

GPS COORDINATES

The GPS coordinates listed in this category are for a route’s trailhead. Each coordinate is listed in degrees, minutes, and decimal seconds using the WGS84 datum (for example: 40˚36'24.65"N, 111˚33'17.95"W).

BEYOND THE ROUTE DATA

The Overview section describes the route and what you can expect. Getting There provides basic driving directions from a major intersection in the nearest town. The Mileage Log details every intersection and point of interest on the route. Options offers alternatives to the highlighted route.

Park City and the surrounding area are lousy with singletrack. There are over 400 miles of nonmotorized trails for mountain bikers to enjoy. If you look at a trail map, you’ll get heart palpitations trying to figure out what to ride. So in this book, I’ve highlighted what I consider to be the best rides within this massive, mind-boggling network. However, with so many cross trails and options, there is no limit to how these trails can be explored. I offer this guidebook as a starting point. Use it to learn the trails, then go out and discover your own favorite ways to ride the best mountain biking trail system in the world.