Our original plan was to camp for a week up at Anthony Lakes…until we saw the weather forecast of below freezing overnight temps and highs in the 40’s. So instead we camped lower and drove up to the mountain to ride one day. Anthony Lakes Ski Mountain is remote. It’s a 40 minute drive from Baker City and that’s the closest city. We actually took the scenic route up the backside through Sumpter.
There isn’t a ton of riding out here, but we found enough to keep us busy after a big day riding Elkhorn Crest the day before. Our ride was 9.2 miles with 1182′ of climbing up to 7926′.
We started from the Elkhorn Crest Trailhead at the mountain and rode a couple short loops that are more ideally suited for hiking. They were tight and rocky and hard to get any flow through some sections. Upper Francy and Lower Francy, were tough loops to get warmed up on! Next we rode out Black Lake to Lily Pad Loop to check out some small lakes. After tacking on College loop and Gunsight (I liked these better), we headed up Hoffer Lake Trail which was a beast. This trail is EXTREMELY rooty and steep to get up. We had to hop off and hike some. We had the lakes up here to ourselves and we poked around and took pictures before continuing up to the flow trail.
Our friends at Dirt Mechanics built the flow trail up at Anthony Lakes Mountain and it’s fantastic. We climbed up an access rode for less than a mile and then hit the Broadway Flow Trail. The lifts weren’t spinning since the season is “over” so we had the place to ourselves! The trail is a playground of banked corners, bumps, rock ramps, wood plank bridges, fast straightaways, wooded tree slaloming and my only complaint is that it wasn’t longer. Very fun trail.
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