Angel Fire Bike Park
Our first ride in Angel Fire was at the bike park. Angel Fire Bike Park is world class. The lift assisted mountain hosted a world cup competition in 2005 and holds downhill races regularly. The mountain has all levels of trails though I’d bet most of the riders are advanced and sticking to the trails with the big jumps, drops, and berms. Lift tickets for a day are $52 for the bike park…adult Disneyland.
We didn’t take the lift though; we rode up Enlightenment Trail a couple times and then came down different trails in the bike park. Enlightenment is a nice 3 mile climb up 1300’ each time. So our day was 13 miles with 2472′ of climbing. As you climb through a beautiful lush forest a few good views of the ski mtn pop through the trees. You can only get half way up the mtn on this trail, if you want to go all the way to the top you have to take the lift. Our first time down we took Lemonade Trail which was a blast. The trail was very fast and flowy with perfect berms to fly around. This connected to Lower Boogie which was another fast trail through the trees with a bunch of table top jumps, all perfectly rideable for cross country geeks like us.
The second time up the climb we took Boulder Dash down. This claims to be Angel Fire’s premier jump trail with over 120 jumps and 90 berms. I took everything at pretty good speed but kept the tires mostly on the ground. I don’t aspire to get hurt and know my limits. Small air here and there, but nothing crazy. This trail is amazing!!!!!!
This was a nice warmup ride for our time in Angel Fire. It has been AGES since I’ve ridden at a ski mtn. Back in the day, almost all my races were at ski mtns in California. It was fun to be back.
Valle Escondido /South Boundary Loop
South Boundary Trail is one of the premiere singletrack trails in the Angel Fire area. It is normally ridden as a shuttle between Angel Fire and Taos but we are going to incorporate it into some loops. Our first loop was 22.3 miles with 3077’ of climbing.
Our ride started in Valle Escondido, just down the hill from our campspot. On a glorious morning we started with a climb up the gravel Valle Escondido Road, up the switchbacks on Forest Road 70, and further up to the 70 Trail. 70 Trail is pretty steep in places with ruts and rocks to make it even more difficult. The meadow at the top here is stunning and we soaked in the solitude before continuing on Elliot Barker Trail .
Elliot Barker Trail was singletrack through forest and up across meadows. It’s really really rocky in places and doubletrack off and on. I get the feeling it doesn’t get a ton of use, probably due to the remoteness. Climbing up to where the trail ends at Osha Mountain at 10,502 ’ we turned right on South Boundary Trail. This trail is sub-alpine forest singeltrack along the ridge. The riding is flowy trail through conifer forest and aspen groves. Green, green, green and super fun. We eventually came out to another forest service road that took us back down to our start. I was bummed to be done with the very fun South Boundary Trail.
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