Photo Epic: The Goods On Park City, Utah
Words: Eric Porter
Photos: Tim Zimmerman
Park City is a special place, full of people who love to ride bikes and spend their time outdoors. When I was looking for a new place to live 8 years ago, I came to check out the town and ended up with a lease signed on a house by the end of the weekend. It wasn't what it is now, but I could see the potential. There were a good number of XC trails, a couple DH shuttle trails, Deer Valley had a few trails and the NORBA course, and the city dirt jump park was being built.
Since then, we have seen exponential growth in both the amount of riding available, and the variety. Canyons Resort has come on board with a full on jump trail style bikepark, we have jump/flow trail spots such as Arcylon and Trailside, the DJ park has turned into something pretty amazing, and our XC/All Mtn trail network has exploded. We even have a free city bus system that accesses a lot of the up trails, and on weekends will have busses full of DH bikes shredding laps!
There are a number of reasons for this growth, but the main driving force is a community of bike riders that cares about the future of our trail network, and works their asses off to make the vision become reality. I am constantly blown away by the number of full time trail builders and volunteers we have working nonstop to build fun stuff for my friends and I to ride our bikes on. The best part is that with this growth in riding terrain, the local city government and local businesses have seen a huge increase in their summer revenues, and now everyone is behind making it an even better place to go.
Tim, the photographer for this article told me, "I thought I knew how rad Park City was, but until this trip I really had no idea." Tim has been pretty much everywhere too, and has done a lot of ridiculous stuff that normal people don't do; google him... The best part is Tim only got to scratch the surface of what we have to offer. After all the years I've been here, there are still trails I haven't had the time to ride yet! Bottom line, do yourself a favor and get down here for a bike vacation. Even if you don't like it here (you will like it here), you can cruise 3 hours down to Moab and have a blast there! Better yet, hit both spots in one trip!
Hands down, this was the sketchiest shuttle of the year! Driving up Guardsman Pass with the intention of riding the Wasatch Crest trail, we expected slick roads, but around a steep corner near the top we found ourselves on a sheet of ice from the first part of the storm the night before. It took a team effort to get the van and trailer safely turned around before we hiked on up to the start of the trail.
As you can see from the above, we've got things pretty good here in Park City when it comes to trails and going out for an adventure with the crew. There are endless miles of single track and more being built all the time. But there is more to our town then just amazing trails in the mountains, we got sick dirt right in town too. Our ever growing Dirt Jump/Skills park is great for everyone in the community too.
Hit up these links for the best all around riding experience in the US that you can get in one place:
www.mountainbikingparkcity.com
www.whitepinetouring.com
www.pcala.org
Words: Eric Porter @portermtbPhotos: Tim Zimmerman @fotomaxizoomdweebie
Park City, Utah
www.trailforks.com
Photos: Tim Zimmerman
Park City is a special place, full of people who love to ride bikes and spend their time outdoors. When I was looking for a new place to live 8 years ago, I came to check out the town and ended up with a lease signed on a house by the end of the weekend. It wasn't what it is now, but I could see the potential. There were a good number of XC trails, a couple DH shuttle trails, Deer Valley had a few trails and the NORBA course, and the city dirt jump park was being built.
Since then, we have seen exponential growth in both the amount of riding available, and the variety. Canyons Resort has come on board with a full on jump trail style bikepark, we have jump/flow trail spots such as Arcylon and Trailside, the DJ park has turned into something pretty amazing, and our XC/All Mtn trail network has exploded. We even have a free city bus system that accesses a lot of the up trails, and on weekends will have busses full of DH bikes shredding laps!
There are a number of reasons for this growth, but the main driving force is a community of bike riders that cares about the future of our trail network, and works their asses off to make the vision become reality. I am constantly blown away by the number of full time trail builders and volunteers we have working nonstop to build fun stuff for my friends and I to ride our bikes on. The best part is that with this growth in riding terrain, the local city government and local businesses have seen a huge increase in their summer revenues, and now everyone is behind making it an even better place to go.
Tim, the photographer for this article told me, "I thought I knew how rad Park City was, but until this trip I really had no idea." Tim has been pretty much everywhere too, and has done a lot of ridiculous stuff that normal people don't do; google him... The best part is Tim only got to scratch the surface of what we have to offer. After all the years I've been here, there are still trails I haven't had the time to ride yet! Bottom line, do yourself a favor and get down here for a bike vacation. Even if you don't like it here (you will like it here), you can cruise 3 hours down to Moab and have a blast there! Better yet, hit both spots in one trip!
 |
 This means a lot. For those who don't know, Park City is the only IMBA Gold Level Ride Center in the world. Not that there aren't other amazing places all over, but this means that Park City has the full variety of trails from beginner to pro level, from XC to DH to Dirt Jump, and has excellent accessibility. |
 |
| Park City is still fairly chill in the summers, compared to the ski season. You can find killer deals right now renting a nice condo like this that includes bikepark lift tickets and everything. Get it while it's good, only going to get busier as the years go on. |
 |
| We woke to snow frosted trees on the first day of our trip to park City at the end of September. |
 |
| This is Doug Dalton's bike. Doug is responsible for a lot of behind the scenes innovations in the bike world, mostly stemming from his time as a World Cup race mechanic for the Cannondale teams, including Myles Rockwell, Missy Giove, Anne Caroline, Cedric Gracia, Aaron Chase, and the list goes on. When those guys needed something for their bikes, Doug would make it himself, giving the team that edge to win. He carries on the tradition of modifying based on need with his moto brush guard setup for the cold snowy days. It may not look cool, but it works! |
 |
 |
| White Pine Touring's Scott House dials in a rental bike for our crew. White Pine offers guided tours of Park City's immense amount of terrain, along with high-performance rentals. During our trip Scott helped make decisions on which trails to ride that would be the most fun and also respect the wet conditions we faced as to minimize damage to the trails. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Decision making time at the top. We opted for the shorter but equally as fun route down the mountain, which still involved 3k feet of descending on super fun trails! |
 |
| Getting my first pow turns of the year! I love winter almost as much as I love summer, so when the snow starts flying I get fired up about snowboarding and I slash everything in sight! Pretty much got my snowboarding kit in effect, face cover, goggles, gore-tex shell. |
 |
| We had pretty unreal conditions this day, 3 inches or so of snow on top of perfect dirt, so you could slide when you want to and also dig in and hook up when you need to. We chose to ride Pinecone trail instead of the Crest because of the weather. It's pretty much like a pumptrack all the way down with tons of stuff to double up and play on around every corner. |
 |
| As we got lower in elevation the trail was already melted off. This is a fun section of mid mountain trail, just before you get to Canyons Resort. This is a 26 mile trail that stays right around the 8,000' elevation and goes from Deer Valley, through Park City Resort, and on over to Canyons. The ski runs you can see in this photo are at Park City Resort. |
 |
| Another cool section of Mid Mountain trail, ripping through an old Rock Slide. |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| The city is also sometimes known as Bark City. We like our dogs here! |
 |
 |
| Nothing else in the world like an Aspen forest, so beautiful. |
 |
| Scott House leads the Angry Singlspeeder, aka Kurt Gensheimer through a super tacky turn. |
 |
| I always wonder what the story is behind this car. It's at the bottom of a popular trail that finishes in town. Seems like someone drove it up the hill as far as they could and just left it, but I'll bet it's much more interesting than that! |
 |
| I love how orange the scrub oaks turn, looks awesome with the green and yellow aspens and the brown dirt and white snow. |
 |
| Scott House and Sakeus Branson ripping across a fun section of trail in the fog. We pretty much never get fog here so this is a special treat! |
 |
| You can always use #moreberms. |
 |
| One of my favourite parts about Park City is all of the old mining ruins all over the place. I love imagining what it was like back then, those guys were way tougher than us! |
 |
| Scott House is a driving force behind getting our MTB scene in front of the world. He's a great guy and just loves to ride, he's one of many awesome locals that help make all of this possible! |
 |
| This is the goods right here! |
As you can see from the above, we've got things pretty good here in Park City when it comes to trails and going out for an adventure with the crew. There are endless miles of single track and more being built all the time. But there is more to our town then just amazing trails in the mountains, we got sick dirt right in town too. Our ever growing Dirt Jump/Skills park is great for everyone in the community too.
 |
| Down to the dirt jumps, the moisture was perfect for dialling the jumps. Cody Gessel and Garret Holm are a couple of the guys on the dig crew here that keep the place dialled. If you see them, thank them! |
 |
 |
 |
| Showing my little man Owen the ropes at the jumps, he loves it! |
 |
| My older son Milo has been following all the big guys around the park for a couple years, the kids of Park City are pretty lucky to have a city that fully backs dirt jump parks! |
Hit up these links for the best all around riding experience in the US that you can get in one place:
www.mountainbikingparkcity.com
www.whitepinetouring.com
www.pcala.org
Words: Eric Porter @portermtbPhotos: Tim Zimmerman @fotomaxizoomdweebie
Park City, Utah
www.trailforks.com
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
i think i need to move to another state.
Whistler is one place. By itself it does not make BC bike heaven. While the provincial government prohibits new trail growth Utah adds miles and miles (kilometers if you prefer) of new trail. The rampage has only happened here. Saint George is where people from Whistler go when the snow flies. More and more high schools have competitive mtb race teams. More and more brands are launching new models in Park City. More and more bike companies base their distribution and/or manufacturing here.
Utah is on the rise. BC is still on top, but don't get too lazy. At the rate we are going Whistler isn't going to be enough to keep BC on top of the game.
I really don’t do this very much, but I couldn’t help react to the comments made. You see, you are right; BC is falling behind because thoses “few” major ski resorts that have mountain biking trails have been doing such a poor job in developing bike park, such as; Whistler, Kicking Horse, Panorama, Fernie, Kimberley, Silver Star, Revelstoke, Sun Peaks, Red Mountain, (sorry on not mentioning the numerous smaller resorts).
Besides these resorts, BC’s small numbers of areas only have several thousand square kilometers (and hundreds of trails in just the Nelson and Fernie area alone). Here are some of the “small” number of areas of back country; Whistler (wow...just realized this came up twice in the count), Pemberton, Squamish, Coastal Mountain Bike park, Sunshine Coast, Cumberland, Campbell River, Mount Washington, Nanaimo, Duncan, Comox Valley, Cumberland Valley, Nelson, Weimer/Christina Lake, Revelstoke, Fernie, Cranbrook, Lake Okanagan, Fraser Valley, Kaslo/Retallack/New Denver, Williams Lake, North Shore (Vancouver), Kamloops (including the Bike Farm), all the small towns up and down the Fraser River from Hope to Prince George, the Columbia Valley area connecting 8 small towns and Castlegar. Again, sorry for all of those I’ve missed (including all of central and northern BC).
The city trails suck too. I mean Vancouver has all those pathetic trails over 3 mountains on the North Shore (Cypress, Frome and Seymour) and Kamloops only has the Bike farm and their “few” trails throughout the city boundaries.
Overall the biking is pretty awful, not close to anything, sucks on vertical, the variety is horrible and not very technical at all.
What I’ve loved about the mountain biking community has been the love for sport and the surrounding natural trails they enjoy (and promote), the patience people have to help those less skilled to get better and stay excited about do it, the promotion of safety and the respect for the land use. Most of what is said in Pikebike has been gracious, polite, excited and just generally upbeat comments regarding anything to do with mountain biking (although, I won’t bring up the tire size issues people are still having, lol). People seem to understand that it’s not where you’re from but the fact that we mountain bike and make the most of and enjoy the trails where we live, and promote the adventure of mountain biking. I’ve been lucky enough to have been a number of places such as (if you couldn’t tell) throughout southern BC, Alberta, Ontario, Washington State, Utah, a little in Cali, the UK and a few days in the French Alps. I live in Calgary, Alberta and really enjoy the trails in our mountains (Kananaskis). The trails, only 45 min away, number in the thousand plus kilometers and join quite a few of our small towns (Exshaw, Seebe, Deadmans Flats, Canmore, Banff, Lake Louise, etc...) all the way to Calgary.
Oh and one more thing, most of the areas I’ve mentioned have grown organically (and continue to be), mostly in our Crown Land area; No permits, no legal actions, just continuous development. The only areas that become a problem are the National Parks (even then there are literally hundreds of kilometers of bike trails throughout Banff/Jasper/Yoho to name a few), a little bit in the provincial parks and private land. Then at a critical point some type of trail association has been created, for the voluntary further development of the areas and maintenance of the trails (almost all through a huge volunteering base).
So please continue to ride big, ride strong and enjoy everybody.
What I am saying is simple. Utah is catching up, fast. In the next five years in will be able to ride from Idaho to the middle of the state without leaving the he Bonneville shoreline trail. We are almost there already. On the way I will be able to stop and sesh dozens of local trails that lead off into vast mountain ranges. I will be able to ride every type of terrain.
Utah has a good share of ski resorts you might have noticed. As those resorts continue to expand their summer operations the variety of available trails will continue to explode.
BC is still on top, but more and more I hear about the government placing restrictions on new growth. Utah is doing the opposite. Here the Man is actually building skills parks in towns with tax dollars even as the state continues to grow and thrive in what has been a bad economy for everyone else.
At the end of the day BC and Utah have a lot in common culturally and geographically. BC has more forest (gotta love that rain forest coast) and Utah has more desert (like 90% of the state it seems like) but these differences are not really important since you can ride in both types of terrain. The major difference as far as biking goes is mainly in Utah's unrealized potential. What I was saying was Utah is well on her way to realizing that potential.
Utah is on the rise.