Snowbasin is a ski resort at the top of Ogden Canyon. The resort offers an excellent trail system with lift-served biking. There's no fee to ride the trail system. You pay only if you want to take the lift uphill. For current information on the lift-served trails, see the Snowbasin site.

For non-resort trails that can be accessed from Snowbasin, see the appropriate pages on this site: Ogden Canyon Overlook , Sardine Peak , East Fork , Green Pond , Wheeler Creek .

The terrain is highly variable. There are stands of fir, groves of aspen, and a lot of maple and oak scrub forest. Open areas let you enjoy views of Mount Ogden and the rolling hills to the east.

There's a one-mile beginner loop located just north of the Snowbasin entry road. Veer to the left as you approach the resort and park in the big lot. On the eastern side of the parking lot is the entry to the Moose Loop.

For a quick ride, I would recommend the ride past Green Pond. From the resort base, find the Snowbasin trail heading southeast. Turn right uphill when you reach the Green Pond trail and follow it uphill to Last Chance. Return via the Needles trail. This loop is 8.4 miles with 800 vertical feet of climbing (GPS track link below).

You can also connect to any of the bigger rides from the resort, such as Sardine Peak, the Overlook, East Fork/Wheeler loop.

There are two main downhill routes, Needles and Porcupine, but with a lot of possible permutations. Needles gets you started downhill.. After 0.7 miles, you can connect north to Porcupine (which rejoins Needles). At 1.1 miles, you can hit Diamond, which bypasses a few wiggles on Needles as it plunges downhill. And at mile 5.1 of Needles, you can hit Last Chance down to the Green Pond trail before taking the Snowbasin trail back to the base (see my topo map).

Go to the summer version of Snowbasin's web site for current information on lift dates and times.