Tour De Sinks Canyon

Mountain Bike Tour de Sinks Canyon
Southern Windriver Range, Shoshone NF
May 31st, 2008



The Route (click to enlarge):

The blue arrows indicate the direction we traveled. From my house in Lander, we went up Sinks canyon then left the pavement to climb up Fairfield Hill first. The yellow dotted line indicates dirt roads, and the red indicates single track. The vertical black lines in the profile indicate where the pavement ended. Many folks would opt not to do this entire ride at once. The Fairfield Hill loop or the Switchback Loop are both great rides by themselves. The entire ride took us a little over 4 hours. I would plan on 1-2 hours for either loop, if you wanted to ride them individually.

The ride:

Fairfield Hill

Fairfield Hill and the road that goes up it, is pretty much the only road that goes up the south side of the canyon. Look for a road/ ATV trail biker's right as you're pedaling (or driving) up the canyon a little ways past the cattle guard. Don't let the word "Hill" deceive you, it's pretty much a mountain. It is a long (1000 ft), steep haul. Often it is loose and rocky. It's best to approach it as a hike and bike. There is a single track that parallels the road from the bottom. Although it's a grind, the single track allows you to climb a little higher than the road, before your quads get cooked. The road was actually in great condition when we road it. Chuck cleaned most sections of it- even the steeper parts toward the top!

Chuck grinds up the single track, making his way up Fairfield Hill.

The Chuck.

Chuck keeps grinding.

After a switchback in the single track, we hopped back on the road. If you continue to follow the single track it takes you up Fairfield creek. The road was pretty baked though, not very loose, so we hammered up it.

Going up.

And up some more, snow covered Roaring Fork Mt in the background.

Even Chuck had to hike a little.

This section of up is after you reach the bench above Fairfield Hill. After a small creek the routes divide. One goes straight across the flats and down a bit (used mostly to access Pete's Lake). The other one takes a right and continues to go up. We went up.

Chuck continues to climb, vistas getting more incredible the higher up we get.

More up.

I rode some of it too (Leg Lake Cirque and Roaring Fk Mt and drainage in the background).

Awesome country!

A good look across the canyon at the switchbacks, where we planned to go next.

Finally, some down-hill.

2000 vertical feet of it!

Shad dropping Fairfield Climber's Trail series:

Weehoo!

Chuck descending Fairfield series:

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

A look back on the approximate route down (in red). This is really great single track! You do need some technical skills to descend all of it safely though. The climbers keep it in pretty awesome shape- almost year round.

With Fairfield Hill clobbered, it was time to pound up the switchbacks. This young bull Moose was greeting everyone that entering Bruce's parking lot.

Yum! Yum!

"Running of the Bulls"... Wyo style!

Chuck starts the grind up the switchbacks. They're closed for construction right now. Perfect for mountain biking- no construction on the weekends yet.

Gaining some more elevation.

Windriver Peak comes into view near the top.

Frye Lake

Chuck turns around at Frye Lake.

After Frye lake, we climbed back up the peak of the switchbacks, munched some bike grub, and prepared to drop the snow-machine trail. It's another great section of down-hill single track. You can bomb it once you get it dialed in, but even novice riders can survive it if they take it easy.


Chuck bombing the Snow-Machine trail single track series:

Yeeehoo!

The snow-machine luge trail will spit you out at the top of the second switch back, which you can bomb down and hop on another cool section of single track that ends up coming out a the Forest Service campground.

Shad ripping Southern Wind single track series:

Fun stuff!

Shad on more single track series:

Probably not my most picturesque attribute. Ha! Great fun though.

The Map again (click to enlarge):

We do shorter, multi-level, group mountain bike rides every Tuesday night. Anyone is welcome to attend. We usually meet in Lander at the Alco parking lot around 5:30pm. Feel free to stop by Gannett Peak Sports on Main Street in Lander for more info, or email me.

Stay tuned for more MTB TRs this year.

A future mountain biker in training...

Ride Tally ride!