When there are so many trails to choose from, you may wonder, “What Bike Trails Should I Ride at Mammoth?” If you have a couple of days, we have you covered in our A Weekend in Mammoth Lakes post. One of the routes you may enjoy is our Beach Cruiser Route which climbs up and around parts of Mammoth Mountain and provides excellent views. Note that this is an easily accessible route when there are no lifts running. Check out another idea on our Paper Route Trail post.
- Distance: 20 mi
- Time: 3-4 hr
- Elevation Gain: 2,035 ft
- When we went: Oct 7 – After the lifts closed
- Route Finding Difficulty: Moderate
- Physical Exertion Difficulty: Moderate
- Map
Getting there: Due to only having one car, we rode from town. If you have two cars at your disposal, you can also do a car drop and park closer to Mammoth resort. For the purpose of explaining this route, try to get through town and start here, at Uptown Trail. There is a trail sign where you will turn off the main road onto the trail.
There are a lot of trails in this area, so I would highly suggest downloading an app like Trail Forks or something similar, to help navigate as you go. For this particular route you will follow Uptown Route until it ends. You’ll be riding approximately 4.3 miles on this trail.
When it ends you’ll be near the upper parking lot for Mammoth Mountain, and the trail may get fuzzy and hard to spot as you pass some buildings. You’ll be on Discovery Trail briefly, and will be looking for Beach Cruiser. It will be the trail farthest to your right. Very quickly, Beach Cruiser forks, and you’ll want to stay to the left for the uphill route. Beach Cruiser is a 5.5 mile loop, but you will only do the uphill portion, and then jump onto Mountain View Trail for your downhill. Shortly after you pass Red’s Lake, you’ll see Mountain View Trail to your left.
Once you get onto Mountain View trail, the trail is very easy to follow, and it is mostly downhill! You will cross over the main road in about 1.1 miles, and briefly bike through a parking lot until you see Mountain View Trail labeled on the trail signs. From here, you will ride 5.3 miles down Mountain View Trail until you arrive back at the main road (Rt 203). Cross the road, and you will come right back down to Uptown Route where you started. Make sure to jump on ‘Downtown’ for the downhill trail that runs parallel!
Please note: Nothing on this route is technical or rocky. There are obviously lots of routes at Mammoth that are way more technical, but this one is easy! The toughest part is route finding when the Uptown Route ends and you need to pick up Beach Cruiser.
PROS:
- A lot of single-track and fun terrain
- Great views
- Big loop to really explore the area
CONS:
- A lot of intersecting trails so you might need your GPS often
- Some very tiring switchbacks at one point
THE SPLIT DECISION:
Jay’s Take: “This route definitely had a lot of elevation gain. It just kept going up and up. I agree with Tyese, the views were not as spectacular as those we saw on the Paper Route Trail. However, it was a full day of mountain biking and I came home exhausted and happy.”
Tyese’s Take: “I really liked this route overall. When we started the Uptown Route I was feeling a bit tired right off the bat, but the scenery got more interesting and it got way more fun the farther up we went! I was definitely hoping for a few more “mountain views” from the trail with that name though, there were only a few spots that had grand views and the rest was mostly in the trees.”
