Three SoCal Winter Resorts Turn Into Mountain Biking Centers For Off-Season
Southern California has always attracted an outdoor crowd with a yen toward exciting sports, so it makes sense that nearby ski and snowboard mountain emphasize downhill mountain biking.
Three L.A. favorites -- Mountain High, Snow Summit and Snow Valley -- crank up lifts to haul MTB riders to the top for the late-summer and fall season.
All run through September. Mountain High keeps its lift running on weekends into mid-October, Snow Summit finishes up Oct. 5, and Snow Valley spins its lift to the last weekend in October.
This spring, Mountain High debuted the newest mountain biking park in southern California.
Closest to the L.A. Basin, Mountain High's initial trail map has seven miles of riding with a 4-1-1 breakdown of beginner to expert at Mountain High West. The Blue Express chair will haul riders to the top on Saturdays and Sundays.
Management at the SoCal resort has mapped out a three-year project to get the MTB park into full gear. This summer's menu leans heavily toward the easier side: The 2.4-mile L'il Pines winds leisurely down the mountain's 1,400 feet of vertical drop, while Coyote Creek -- the park's most technical ride -- adds in tight turns and challenging jumps on its 3.2-mile jaunt downhill.
In the future, Mountain High plans to develop more advanced trails to round out the trail map, plus a skills park near the base area for riders to work on their jumping, banking and dropping skills.
A past regular on the MTB racing circuit, Snow Summit has re-upped its game recently. Majority of trails feature machine-built berms, rollers, jumps and drops. Three chairlifts spin daily for lapping the mountain's 1,200 vertical feet and 10 trails.
One of the most popular trails is 1.6-mile Miracle Mile. The black route begins at the top of Chair 2, and dives down 1,400 vertical feet on all the steep stuff from top to bottom. The less adventurous head to Going Green that rolls through three miles of forest on less than 1,000 feet of drop.
Ticket-partner Snow Valley attracts the green-and-blue MTB crowd, with 860 feet of vertical on 13 trails. One chairlift runs Friday afternoons and all day Saturdays and Sundays.
Novice Greenhorn winds its way along contours for 2.4 miles from top to bottom, while blue-rated Bandit descends nearly a mile with wide berms and occasional jumps to a mid-mountain mountain intersection. Snow Valley's two black runs divide up into shorter runs, with Quick Draw up high and Lower Jumpline into the base area.
