McPhee & Bean Canyon
Once again we set our alarms and got an early start to our singletrack riding. I’m not sure it’s necessary to start early, but happily we didn’t see anyone the entire time. This trail day was 21 miles with 2169′ of climbing.
We’ve ridden here before and enjoyed it because it’s not very heavily trafficked, the trails are fun, and the views are great. The McPhee and Bean Canyon Loop are the best trails in that area and offer enough challenge to keep it fun. We do the bean loop counterclockwise because it makes for a longer downhill, bu the catch is that the climb up out of the canyon this way is pretty steep in spots. Ordinarily not a problem really, but a short way into the climb I noticed giant bear paw prints all along the trail and got freaked out. It’s a narrow canyon where you’re penned in by cliffsides and a stream with heavy brush and trees all around. We never saw the bear, but it sure jolted us.
Ramparts Loop & Coyote Park
This day wasn’t huge mileage wise, but it was still demanding and VERY fun. The stats: 15 miles of trail with 2,377′ of climbing. Ramparts Loop is a sweet little loop that is up Echo Basin where we’ve been doing a lot of gravel riding. We swapped out gravel bikes for our mountain bikes and had another day of singletrack fun.
We started by heading clockwise on Ramparts Loop Trail. The trail apps all rank this as black diamond advanced but I think it should be more intermediate. Right away the trail swoops downhill through the aspen groves and twists and turns down to the low point where we crossed a meadow and came to a junction finally. Here we turned left onto a doubletrack and climbed through to Coyote Park.
First of all, can we talk about the name of this trail…”Coyote Park”??? We didn’t see any coyotes, just fields of grass, streams, trees, and flowers. It’s a nice gentle climb that turns to singletrack after a short bit and then continues a gradual climb up through the aspens and gamble oak. We came to a meadow and explored an unmarked trail that headed northeast. About a mile in, as we rounded a corner, Derek halted and calmly said, “BEAR”. There was a rather large black bear blocking the trail. We aren’t sure if it saw us, but we turned around and got out of there.
Back in the meadow, we took the steep, loose switchbacks down into Box Canyon. These are rideable, but pretty challenging. At the bottom we rode along the river before coming to a crossing. It’s here that we decided to turn around and head back for the day. The switchbacks up require hiking and push biking but it goes fast. We re-traced our ride back to the first junction of the day and picked back up the Rampart Loop.
Climbing up Ramparts is beautiful. Steep? Sure, but the views of the rock cliff jutting skywards along the trail is inspiring. The trail winds up towards the base and then impossible slinks into a hidden canyon that surprised us with patches of snow and an abundance of fir trees! The piney smell was intoxicating. One last jaunt through some aspens had us back where we started the day. So satisfying.
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