3 Rad Rides on Lower Montana Mountain

The stunning landscape containing the town of Carcross is the Carcross Tagish First Nation (CTFN), which is a self-governing entity surrounded by the Yukon Territory. Montana Mountain is the largest block of land that the CTFN currently controls, and it is sacred to the First Nation. Many of Montana Mountain's trails were originally blazed hundreds of years ago as ancient trading routes and have only recently been resurrected to serve as mountain bike trails. In addition, new trails—especially on the lower mountain—have been built to provide a challenging, technical mountain biking experience.

These trails were built through the Singletrack to Success program, which was founded in 2006. Singletrack to Success employs native youth to build and maintain top-tier singletrack mountain bike trails on the mountain. Through coaching from more experienced builders that have been in the program for many years as well as professional trail builders with longstanding industry chops, the local youth not only earn money while building trail during the summer, but they also learn valuable skills that can be applied not just in Carcross, but around the world.

In this guidebook, you'll find three of the raddest rides on the lower flanks of Montana Mountain. While you can definitely find longer distance epics higher up on the mountainside, these technical lines on the lower mountain are quickly becoming world-renowned and attract advanced mountain bikers looking to test their mettle on the challenging rock slabs and narrow wooden skinnies.

Wolverine is one of the best-known trails on the lower mountain, in part due to its ease of access. You can either pedal to the top of Wolverine or set up a shuttle using the access road that runs up the mountain.

The trails on the opposite side of the access road require a bit more pedaling to reach, but they're even gnarlier than Wolverine! After descending the Goats trail, you have a few different trails to choose from, with Wolf providing the same feel or Grizzly Bear ratcheting up the technicality and commitment factor a few notches.

Quantity of trail is important, but so is quality—and Carcross has both of these in spades. These trails on the lower mountain exhibit an incredible mile-per-mile high-caliber of singletrack that is unparalleled!

Sources: Shift Singletracks.com