There are so many trails out in the City Creek network that we spent 2 more days riding all different stuff.
City Creek Trails
The first day of riding in Pocatello we did a loop on one side of the network, this time we stuck to the other side. Our loop linked together The Grove, Gutterball, Bowling Ball, Outlaw, Dairy Short Loop, and Black Cairn for 12 miles and 2016′ of climbing.
The trails on this side seem like they get less use, again, we didn’t see anyone. Some of the highlights: The Grove was appropriately names as you climb up through a serpentine grove of aspens. Gutterball was a grunt of a climb followed by a really fun technical section. Both Gutterball and Bowling Ball were black diamond so be prepared to be in for some technical stuff. The rest of the riding was fast, fun, flowy and very narrow. The singletrack here really is single and I like that.
Sterling Justice
Sterling Justice Trail starts a couple miles outside of town and we rode it out towards the main City Creek Trail network, did a loop there and then rode back. Our ride was about 15 miles with 1600’ of climbing. Not far from the trailhead is the sign for Sterling Justice describing who he was.
In 1884 just as the railroad arrived in Southern Idaho, Sterling Justice was born and raised on a horse and cattle ranch. He became the first Ranger for the Portneuf River Ranger District for the newly named US Forest Service after graduating from college in 1908. After a year he became the Pocatello Ranger and worked as a ranger until 1947 when he reached the required retirement age of 62.
The trail is rated black diamond on Trailforks but I think that’s a bit harsh. There are maybe a handful of short rocky technical sections but for the most part I’d say strong intermediate unless exposure bothers you. The trail for most of the way is cut into the side of the mountain with steep slopes on the downhill side VERY STEEP. This trail had to take a lot of work and the sign board indeed said it took 2500 hours of volunteer work. We stopped at the Sterling Justice Overlook and I was pretty impressed with the sign showing all the mountain peaks.
Our loop was short but sweet. We took Green Dragon lower which didn’t look like it got too much use. The vegetation around here grows so fast that the trail gets overgrown easily and this one was pretty brushy and narrow. We hung a right on Dragon’s Tail and continued over to the other end of Sterling Justice. Both these trail are very new and still being ridden in.
The last part of our ride was climbing up the switchbacks of Sterling Justice and backtracking the way we came. The climb up from this side of Sterling is much easier than the other side. Blasting back down the part we’d climbed earlier was pretty rewarding, very fast, and very fun. This was a sweet ending to our time on the Pocatello trails and I really enjoyed it.
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