Gorgeous ridge top singletrack riding with long singletrack descent all the way down to Salt Lake City far, far below!

Statistics

2 - 3

hrs

453

m

1,905

m

9

max°

Difficulty

FATMAP difficulty grade

Difficult

Description

Flowy ridge top singletrack with jaw-dropping views of Big Cottonwood Canyon and the Park City region make the Wasatch Crest trail one of the best trails in Utah—and that’s saying something! After catching a shuttle in Salt Lake city, you’re whisked upward to the top of Guardsman Pass.

As you pedal away from the pass, it's hard to wrap your head around how quickly you end up in the middle of absolutely nowhere—but soon you're surrounded by nothing besides jagged mountain peaks. The red dirt and rocks along these mountain tops provide an interesting accent to the high-speed riding, as it's very different than the dark black dirt in Park City proper.

Overall this trail is flowy, but the flow doesn't last—an extremely technical, rocky descent along the ridge known as "The Spine" is absolutely brutal, but can be walked by intermediate riders.

Again the singletrack switches back to flow.

The route shown here finishes by dropping down the Mill Creek trail to Salt Lake City far, far below.

Take note of the day of the week: according to Kristen Bonkoski in an article published on Singletracks.com, “upper Mill Creek canyon is closed to mountain bikers on odd days.” So while you can descend down into Park City (mapped separately) any day of the week, you can only do the full run to SLC on even days.

Wherever you park and whatever shuttle you do, make sure that you descend down the correct side of the mountain so you don’t get stranded. Sources: https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-trails/5-epic-shuttle-rides-near-salt-lake-city/ https://www.skiutah.com/blog/authors/tim/the-wasatch-crest-trail-it-s-got-a-shuttle