By Jay Burke
Summer is in full swing, and so are the trail crews in Park City. With a handful of new trails now open, and some new tools to help you get to them, It’s no wonder that IMBA designated Park City as the first Gold-Level Ride Center in the country! Thanks to committed organizations like Snyderville Basin Special Recreation District (Basin Rec.), Park City Municipal Corp., Local Resorts, and many private landowners, the area is quickly becoming one of the best riding destinations in the country.
Pinecone Trail: Open early July, this new trail is the “Gem of the Wasatch,” especially when you combine it with last years new Armstrong Trail. The trail is 4 miles long and maintains the same perfect climbing grade of 6.5% that Armstrong has. Put the two trails together and you have the “Armcone” Trail. Special thanks to project manager, Basin Rec. for bringing Talisker, The Colony, and Jack Gallivan together to make this happen. These landowners had a huge hand in making this project possible.
H.A.M. Trail: Opened mid-June, and created so there could be a shorter loop option off of Armstrong trail (connects into Spiro Trail). The trail is just shy of one mile long and was funded by Park City Municipal; the land came from cooperation with Park City Mountain Resort.
Ramble On: Round Valley has 2 miles of new trail, which opens up the northeast corner to some great loop options now. Park City Municipal manages the Round Valley area and works closely with Mountain Trails to build and maintain the system, both summer and winter. This new trail continues from where Ramble-On tied into Rusty Shovel and continues all the way around to Rambler up in the valley (parallels the double track road called Silver Summit Connector).
Preserve Connection (Flying Dog Trail): Another project brought to us by Basin Rec.; this trail connection completes the popular Flying Dog Loop. You may recall, when riding the loop counter-clockwise you had to ride on the road for about a mile, this new trail keeps users on dirt all the way around! Trail work started on National Trails day, thanks to all that helped!
Interactive Map: MTF recently launched a new interactive map, the system spawns off of the popular skidmap.com platform, but the MTF version focuses on the greater Park City area of trails. The system is feature rich with the ability to create and share routes with friends, or even export as a gpx file for use with GPS systems. Please go give it a test drive.
For more information, visit mountaintrails.org
