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Deer Valley
Deer Valley offers lift-served downhill biking on a variety of trails. This ski resort has, arguably, the most popular and most variable lift-served biking trails in Utah -- if you feel like banging downhill without spending your day grunting uphill. View down the hill, looking towards Jordanelle Reservoir. Photos July 2002.
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Looking for info on the Deer Valley XC
Race Loop? |
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UtahMountainBiking.com is your source for bike trail info, repair instructions, feature articles, first aid, fitness, and goodies. |
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If you like to climb, it doesn't cost you anything to use Deer Valley's trails. But you shouldn't climb UP the downhiller's singletracks -- not if you value your life. The lift runs Wednesday through Sunday (subject to change). On days when the lift isn't running, you can use any trail as an uphill route. Otherwise, you should use the gravel lift access road to ride uphill.The lift is shared by hikers. |
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Deer Valley connects to the Deer Crest Trail system near the top of the lower lifts (along the southern ridge). To get there, you roll east from the lift-served area, up to the hill where you see the lift from the lower mountain. Deer Valley connects to the west-side Park City trail system via the Deer Camp Trail. This trail will take you northwest to a couple of small high-altitude loops called the Flagstaff Loop and Ontario Loop. Continuing on, you'll arrive at the top of Tour des Suds. From here, you can connect to the Park City Mountain Resort trail system via TG1 and TG2. View along a forested trail section. This is a black-diamond section, featuring log drops, quick turns, and slalom-like pathways. |
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The top of Deer Valley Connects to Tour des Suds, TG, and other Park City Trails via the Deer Camp trail, which heads northwest just behind the lift. This view shows the wide meadow through which Deer Camp traverses. |
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Deer Valley has lift-served trails suitable for
reasonably-able beginners, such as Naildriver. Yet for hardcore riders, it
offers kick-butt technical downhills such as Fire Swamp, Aspen Slalom, and
Freestyle. You'll find a lot to like.
This handlebar view looks down a typical section of aspen forest on Naildriver, an easier singletrack route. This is near the connection to Twist and Shout. |
| Getting there: To get up to the lift, I suggest
you drive, rather than riding from the bottom. Follow the signs in Park
City to get onto Deer Valley Drive. After the road divides, turn right
uphill just as the parking area for the Snow Park Lodge comes into view.
Follow this winding road uphill, ignoring the multiple roads taking off at
angles. Find parking at the lodge, and head towards the lift on the
sidewalk.
From the bottom: If you, for whatever insane reason, decide to ride uphill from the Snow Park Lodge parking area, there are several routes, but they aren't easy to navigate: (A) As you face the lodge from the parking area, there's a doubletrack on the right side. Follow this up through two turns, then keep heading as close to straight south as you can when you hit any forks. Eventually, you'll drop down across a road and come around the south side of the lodge. (B) A bit up the doubletrack, a singletrack heads straight uphill. Try to keep heading uphill and southward until you reach the top of the hill, where you can connect to doubletrack to roll down past the lodge. (C) Up the Gap Trail (see the Solamere Trail), but connecting southward onto Deer Crest. Eventually, you wind up on top of the mountain, where you catch a doubletrack down past the lodge. This is the "long way round" but it's actually my favorite route uphill. |
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For additional information, including
nearby lodging, rentals, camping, and current conditions, may we suggest: |
