Snow Basin Resort

That's Alex Rodriquez, age 8, enjoying the downhill at Snowbasin. Photo by Randy Klein, September 11, 2005.

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 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 .

Snowbasin clears of snow relatively late. You can hit some of the lower trails (for example, the Green Pond loop) by early June, but it's usually July before the resort is ready for biking on the lift-served trails.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.

Rolling a traverse area through a dry stretch of scrub oak.

Racing in 2012. Almost to the resort base on the Needles trail.

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 .

You can also ride the doubletrack (behind the metal gate at the northwest corner) up to the Wheeler Creek trail or the Ogden Canyon Overlook trail. Try a short out-and-back on either of these trails to test your skill.

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.

Alex near the top of the resort. Photo Randy Klein, July 17, 2005.

Once again, Alexander Rodriquez in a photo by Randy Klein, September 11, 2005.

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.

This is a compressed representation of the Snowbasin trail map, shown for illustrative purposes only. Riders should obtain the current official map with trail usage rules from Snowbasin resort's web page. Download PDF of Snowbasin trail map!