Ride the Best MTB Trails in the Remote Yukon Territory

Explore the wildly beautiful terrain of the Yukon on this selection of the territory's best mountain bike trails.

Mountain Biking Moderate, Difficult, Severe, Extreme

Description

The Yukon Territory, now often referred to as "the Yukon," is one of Canada's most remote and least-populated provinces or territories. This vast, rugged landscape is home to more moose than people: an estimated 70,000 moose live in the Yukon, and only about 44,000 people call the territory home. Of those 44,000 people, 28,000 live in Whitehorse, the territorial capital and the only city in the province. The rest of the region is vast, wild, sparsely populated, and utterly beautiful.

You can find all manner of epic landscapes in the Yukon! If you road trip across the territory, you'll experience towering mountain ranges, including Canada's tallest mountain—Mount Logan, rising to a height of 5,959 MASL. The largest icefield in Canada is in the Yukon, as well as expansive tundra in the north; deep, dark forests in the south and coastal regions; endless lakes; marshy areas; and North America's third-longest river.

The catch-22 of wild, rugged wilderness for mountain bikers is that high-quality singletrack trails require a certain critical mass of humanity to build and maintain them, especially when the dense summer undergrowth of the Yukon threatens to swallow the narrow tracks whole. Thus, the best trails in the Yukon are all found close to the "population centers"... but of course, that phrase relative.

The city of Whitehorse is surrounded by networks of singletrack trails, but in this guidebook we've only included a few highlights to get you started. There are many other trail systems to explore near Whitehorse, and this area alone could take you months to exhaust.

The remote town of Dawson City is famous as the epicenter of the Klondike Gold Rush, which drew over 100,000 prospectors looking to make a fortune. When you make the effort to visit this truly unique historical tourist destination, be sure to ride the trails on Midnight Dome.

But finally, the absolute highest-quality singletrack in the territory is actually located next to the tiny town of Carcross on the slopes of Montana Mountain. While the population here is small, these fantastic world-class trails came into being through the concerted effort of the Carcross Tagish First Nation youth via the Singletrack to Success program. While most other towns are hesitant to invest the kind of time and resources that it takes to build and maintain high-caliber trails in such a remote and rugged landscape, Carcross is all-in on mountain biking, and the quality of the singletrack reflects this investment.

If you're looking for a mountain bike road trip that's a long ways from ordinary, head to the vast, rugged, and inspiring landscape of the beautiful Yukon Territory!