Mt. Elbert!! what a fine hunk of rock! Towering 14,433’ above sea level and covertly hiding one of Colorado’s better mountain bike descents! Starting the summer of 2017 and continuing through this summer the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative has been hard at work re-routing the East Ridge route from the Mt. Elbert South trailhead. The lower elevations up to just above treeline are now all rideable thanks to the now bike friendly re-routes. The re-routes then become extremely fast and flowy on the downhill, some primo singletrack!
We choose to start the ride at the Mount Massive parking lot, heading south on Colorado Trail Segment 11. The Colorado Trail starts with a warmup climb followed by perfect buffed single track, with a few speedy descents before meeting up with the South Mount Elbert trail.
The hike a bike "Hikyling" started at approx 13,000' and continued to the summit with just enough rideable sections sprinkled in to tease.
As for the descent it was one to remember! Classic alpine tech until tree-line, where the rocks disappeared and the single track neared perfection, buffed, fast and playful all the way to our shuttle vehicle at the South Elbert trailhead.
The Mt. Elbert - Shuttle undoubtedly made its way into the Best of Colorado MTB project as well the Best of North America MTB list
Best of Colorado MTB - Central - Sawatch
Best of North America MTB
Mt Elbert - Shuttle
17 miles
+5,086’ - Climb
-5,536’ - Descent
w/ Joel Ignizio
Interactive Map of Featured Ride:
Route highlighted in yellow
Click on ride title to open Trailforks App for further details
including options to save the route to your phone
Some of the pristine re-routed trail - Joel
We shared the summit with three fellas from Houston
Alpine singletrack - Joel
Hikyling - Joel
The aspens on the lower segemnts were unreal - Joel
The Yeti in her natural environment - La Plata Pk. seen in the background
Starting the almost 6k descent from the highest summit in the Rocky Mountains - Joel
Good all alpine tech for the first two miles - Joel
Nearing the summit - Joel
Pedaling at 13k - Joel
One of our favorite CO descents!!
