TR: Shadow Mountain, Jackson Hole 8/23/2009

[skiing-in-jackson]

I went out with the family today on Shadow Mountain. My wife and the younger kids were picking huckleberries and my older kids and I used the opportunity to shuttle our bikes to the top of the mountain for a few laps.

It is not a long route. The climb is on rough(er) forest roads, with some dirt bike and heavier ATV traffic. When you get to the "top", where the forest road opens up and levels off, you'll see a distinct trail/singletrack off to the West (left). This parallels the road for a couple of hundred yards then drops distinctly to the left. Beware- in drier conditions this is a dusty, powdery ride. We caught it in a light drizzle and it packed down OK. Short sections of the are bottomless talc. Today was somewhat nicer.

Once one hits the Valley floor, head south (left) to return along the Border Road to get back to the parking area at the bottom of Shadow Mountain. I think it is best to park where the pavement ends- about .75 miles from the start of the climb- this avoids a congested area where ATVers unload their trailers. On weekdays, this whole area is pretty deserted. Today we saw some of the ATV crowd on the road & some dirt bike tracks on the trail, but didn't see anybody the entire ride.

The huckleberry picking is excellent. If anybody wants to know, the top of the mountain is just great, just drop over the back side.

This is the "standard route" on Shadow Mountain. There are more, but I don't know them that well. This was measured with a Garmin eTrex Legend, then uploaded to Motionbased.com

Sorry for the small pics, just click on them.

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Vertical Profile

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Liberty and Damaris with the goods:

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Blaze on Shadow:

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Eden:

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Blaze on the rocks:

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Route with labels:

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[Eluder]

Looks like you all had fun.

Did that ride last year on our Jackson MTB trip, it was a fun one. The ride up the road is pretty easy. I remember the bottomless talc the most, it sure made some of the turns interesting.