Sun Valley Must Rides

[nest]

Yo! Quick question for locals/anyone who has ridden the Alden gulch reroute. Is Alden gulch appropriate for an intermediate plus rider? Wife loves osberg ridge and a loop seems ideal. She probably wouldn’t be stoked on a four mile hike a bike down so trying to get a feel for difficulty. Thanks in advance.

[Zeno]

Yo! Quick question for locals/anyone who has ridden the Alden gulch reroute. Is Alden gulch appropriate for an intermediate plus rider? Wife loves osberg ridge and a loop seems ideal. She probably wouldn’t be stoked on a four mile hike a bike down so trying to get a feel for difficulty. Thanks in advance.

Yes. It’s not difficult. We have even ascended Alden and my GF on a hardtail thought it was relatively easy.

[nest]

Sweet! Stoked to check it out.

[ticketchecker]

X2 on Alden with an intermediate GF, she liked it

[BobbyBill]

What's the best way to ride Osberg/Alden without a shuttle?

[Shredeagle]

Ride straight to Lefty's and make your wife get the car.

Duh.

[smmokan]

What's the best way to ride Osberg/Alden without a shuttle?

I did this ride back in June: https://www.strava.com/activities/3609700888

Not sure it's the "best", but it's one way to ride it. The climb up Baker Creek Rd is easy but long, and then you still have a decent amount to climb to the top of Osberg.

[BobbyBill]

Thanks, smmokan...that looks like a good plan. Looks like a side trip to Baker Lake could be added too.

[jhyatt]

I spent a week in Stanley Ketchum this summer and rode every day. No shuttles. I camped along Baker Creek.
Park at the bottom of Alden there is a campground and ride up the road it's not bad, up osberg down Alden. Feeling strong go back up east baker and down curly's.
If you can shuttle get dropped at the start of osberg and do that but then go down Oregon gulch and then do chocolate gulch and those trails on the side of the loop further from the road back to town. Amazing.
I think upper and lower oregon is one of the best DH and I rode all over the place this summer.
Or go down the north side of the Adam gulch loop if oregon is too long.
Greenhorn imperial is good for a shorter ride. I kept going up and hit oregon from that side. I see how they could connect.
By Stanley up fischer down williams is fun. I did an out and back at the top on upper williams.
Another big ride by Stanley is up little casino down big casino. Sunny gulch connects them.
A fun out there ride is potato mountain. Look up Stanley creek. Rode clockwise.your feet will get wet.
I saw lots of people on ebikes on the Moto trails. If you rent an Ebike I see how you could do really huge rides there.

That area was one of the most fun of all the riding i did all summer.

The thrift store in Ketchum has really nice bike clothes for cheap. No I did not buy chamois.

KB burrito is the bomb.

I ran to sawtooth lake in the wilderness. Felt like switzerland. The sawtooth range up by redfish lake is rugged.

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[smmokan]

Hmmmm.... not sure I agree with you on Upper/Lower Oregon being an amazing descent. Upper Oregon is great, but it's relatively short. Lower Oregon is about as flat as it gets though.

There are SO many great rides to be had in the Greenhorn area, if you connect them around the backside of Baldy. Plus, for a shorter ride it's tough to beat Greenhorn-Imperial for a 90-minute spin.

You connected Greenhorn with Oregon? That's a beast ride!

[jhyatt]

Hmmmm.... not sure I agree with you on Upper/Lower Oregon being an amazing descent. Upper Oregon is great, but it's relatively short. Lower Oregon is about as flat as it gets though.

There are SO many great rides to be had in the Greenhorn area, if you connect them around the backside of Baldy. Plus, for a shorter ride it's tough to beat Greenhorn-Imperial for a 90-minute spin.

You connected Greenhorn with Oregon? That's a beast ride!

No those were separate rides.

Greenhorn, mars, mahoney, lodgepole, upper cow creek

Adam's gulch, oregon, chocolate, fox creek another day

To op another good resource is look at the western spirit trip itinerary. They ride red warrior but I never did. Looks steep and moto

Warm and cold springs are supposed to be good but I didn't do those

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[nest]

Anyone around this week that wants to go on a weirdo ride? Camping through Saturday and thinking pioneer-johnstone-bear-parker looks sweet. Have one solo day to do a bigger ride and would like to do something new.

[evdog]

Not sure I'd call that a weirdo ride. It was pretty rad. Day 2 from my trip last year: https://www.tetongravity.com/forums/...ghlight=parker

You'll see tons of hikers going up Pioneer to the cabin. But not many on Johnstone or Bear/Parker. Bear is a grind by that point, but Parker is so fast fun and worth it.

[smmokan]

If you can arrange for a drop off (or use the shuttle w Sturtevants), I’d recommend this one:

Up Osberg / Lost Shirt
Down Castle Creek
Right on Warm Springs Rd for a couple miles
Up Middle Fork to South Fork
Down Lick Gulch (amazing descent)
Up/down North Fork of DC
Up Howard’s
Down Greenhorn to the Greenhorn Gulch TH

All in, it’s about 31 miles, 4500’ climbing and 6500’ descent, one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done.

[jhyatt]

If you can arrange for a drop off (or use the shuttle w Sturtevants), I’d recommend this one:

Up Osberg / Lost Shirt
Down Castle Creek
Right on Warm Springs Rd for a couple miles
Up Middle Fork to South Fork
Down Lick Gulch (amazing descent)
Up/down North Fork of DC
Up Howard’s
Down Greenhorn to the Greenhorn Gulch TH

All in, it’s about 31 miles, 4500’ climbing and 6500’ descent, one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done.

Lick is good? I heard it was a torn up dirt bike trail?

That's a great loop... How much of that is hike a bike?

[nest]

Sweet! Some good linkups to mull over. Thanks for the info guys.

[smmokan]

Lick is good? I heard it was a torn up dirt bike trail?

That's a great loop... How much of that is hike a bike?

Lick Gulch is bad ass. I rode it multiple times last month and none of it was torn up.... I have no idea why it's labeled as a dirt bike trail on TrailForks, it's one of the sweetest descents in the area, IMO.

There's only a little HAB on the upper part of the Middle Fork climb, less than 10 minutes. The shot below was taken near the top, about a minute into the descent.

[Mountainman]

Lick is good? I heard it was a torn up dirt bike trail?

That's a great loop... How much of that is hike a bike?

Every trail that was listed is a dirt bike trail.

[brutah]

bumping this thread because I'm heading up to ketchum tomorrow for the weekend. Not the greatest weather forecast, but hopefully it will push out some smoke.

any thoughts on a grand prize>bowery>germania creek>galena gulch loop? Would that be the recommended direction for this route?

I've ridden Osberg ridge, Adams Gulch, the low hanging fruit around galena summit, Chocolate gulch, fox creek, greenhorn to imperial so looking for something new to check out on this trip, though I'm not opposed to riding any of these again as they were all excellent rides imo. probably won't have time to make it to stanley

The osberg to greenhorn ride looks awesome but sounds like a 5-6 hour ride and not sure I'll have a time window to pull it off or a shuttle to make it happen

[cbgarrett]

Cold springs to warm springs is around 21 miles if you start/finish in town. Long climb and fun descent. Nothing technical, just nice singletrack.

[rippling over canyons]

bumping this thread because I'm heading up to ketchum tomorrow for the weekend. Not the greatest weather forecast, but hopefully it will push out some smoke.

any thoughts on a grand prize>bowery>germania creek>galena gulch loop? Would that be the recommended direction for this route?

I've ridden Osberg ridge, Adams Gulch, the low hanging fruit around galena summit, Chocolate gulch, fox creek, greenhorn to imperial so looking for something new to check out on this trip, though I'm not opposed to riding any of these again as they were all excellent rides imo. probably won't have time to make it to stanley

The osberg to greenhorn ride looks awesome but sounds like a 5-6 hour ride and not sure I'll have a time window to pull it off or a shuttle to make it happen

Corral>Pioneer Cabin>Parker>Bear is an amazing ride. Be prepared: it's a burly, full day ride with a ton of climbing. Also, a shorter, techy ride is Prairie/Miners Creeks. There are 2 very scenic lakes on this ride as well. If you're willing to travel further: Little/Big Boulder creeks is probably my favorite ride in the area. It's a long haul to the trailhead.
edit: just read the 5-6 hour window and won't have time to make it to Stanley part, so that would leave only Prairie/Miners as an option.

[evdog]

any thoughts on a grand prize>bowery>germania creek>galena gulch loop? Would that be the recommended direction for this route?
n

Ive ridden pieces of that loop during other rides, can't really recommend those trails from what I've seen. Lots of hike a bike on moto trail.

Parker Bear turns Pioneer into a big ride. But you could make a shorter loop of it by going up N Fork Hyndman to Pioneer Cabin and down Johnstone. All the views including the cabin without the hoardes of hikers on Pioneer Cabin Trail. And Johnstone is a fun trail that doesn't see tons of hikers.

Seems you could also get a good ride in looping trails south of Warm springs Rd like Warfield and Red warrior - add more as time allows. Don't think those get ridden as much but heard there's some good stuff up there.

Croy Creek trails down by Hailey are pretty fun and you can add on various loops depending how much time you have. Everything I rode was very pedallable.

[brutah]

Appreciate all the recommendations in this thread even if I didn't start it. It definitely gave me some good ideas for rides during my visit last weekend. Even ended up doing an extended version of Smokan's point to point ride.

Started the trip off with a Cold Springs to Warm Springs loop. Definitely nice to loop around Sun Valley though the descent down warm springs was fast it was a little meh imo. (I rode up warm springs again during this trip and liked going up it more than down it) Either way, we were staying in the warm springs base area so it was nice to end the ride there. The ride wasn't short on views though.







The next day one of my good ski buddies happened to be in town at the same time and his friend was nice enough to shuttle us up to Baker Lake to do the Osberg to Greenhorn point to point ride that Smokan recommended. In my typical fashion, I didn't look too closely at Smokan's route on strava and just went off the beta he posted here which resulted in us going up middle fork of warm springs to the middle fork - south fork trail and then lick gulch instead of up south fork of warm springs to middle fork - south fork. This error added about 9 miles and 2000+ vert to the ride, which wasn't too big of a deal since I thought that section was pretty fun. But my wife and buddy's friend weren't overly stoked with the added 2 hours this tacked onto the ride, at least my wife is pretty used to my under estimation. Our ride ended up being about 40 miles and 6700 vert. Definitely an epic ride and crazy that we saw one person the entire ride and that was greenhorn at the very end of the ride. Just a great adventure ride in my opinion.

fireweed was going off up lost shirt






Finish the trip off with a Fox Creek loop with my father in law and wife

[jhyatt]

I'm riding out of Hailey for the next 3 days if anyone wants to ride/shuttle. Ideally up to osberg and back to town. I can only fit 2 bikes/people including myself. Maybe 3 if we get creative.

Edit: found a ride back to trailhead. Doing smmokan ride tomorrow.
Did the end of that loop today (Mahoney lodgepole mars greenhorn) and it was loose rock and sandy... And kind of cold [emoji3063]

[jhyatt]

If you can arrange for a drop off (or use the shuttle w Sturtevants), I’d recommend this one:

Up Osberg / Lost Shirt
Down Castle Creek
Right on Warm Springs Rd for a couple miles
Up Middle Fork to South Fork
Down Lick Gulch (amazing descent)
Up/down North Fork of DC
Up Howard’s
Down Greenhorn to the Greenhorn Gulch TH

All in, it’s about 31 miles, 4500’ climbing and 6500’ descent, one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done.

Did this yesterday. 29.4 miles/6 hours total even after I took what I thought were shortcuts but excluding the spin back to Hailey. A few comments:
Very cold, in the lower 50s, I was shivering on the downs, August!. Besides near the greenhorn lot did not see a single rider. Saw a momma bear and cub in castle creek. So more bears than people.
Castle creek was very loose gravel and a several trees down on the lower flatter part. That's a long isolated descent.
Turned right on warm springs Rd. Then left and two options. "Up middle to south" I took the left shorter one which I think is up south to middle. Is that what you had in mind?
Lick gulch was rad.
Deer creek was rad.
Howards was a loose gravelly slog
I took the shorter (left) for greenhorn at those chairs at the junction as I had done the longer one the day before after coming down Mars. It's all down and super fun but not as pretty as the other leg of that loop and shorter.
Epic ride thanks for the suggestion.
Happy trails.
Mellower cold springs warm springs today. Full moon at the hot springs tonight.