Portal Trail photo by dauw.
Last week the Team Fezzari blog posted a list of the 8 most dangerous MTB trails in the world and while they admit it’s not a scientific list, it’s an interesting start. Old favorites like Porcupine Rim in Moab and Yungas Road in Bolivia made the list but so did Bootleg Canyon outside Vegas and Black Mountain in western North Carolina. Then again, most mountain bike trails are only as difficult as you make them anyway…
Here on singletracks we’ve been asking our members to rate trail difficulty on the IMBA scale that closely parallels the standard ski slope rating many of us are familiar with. On that scale, double black diamond is the most difficult rating and so far less than 1% of the 3,100+ trails on singletracks have warranted that mark. Here they are in order of increasing difficulty (only trails with at least 2 reviews are included):
Deer Creek Canyon: Littleton, CO
Tower: San Luis Obispo, CA
Lunatic Fringe: Green River, WY
Ridgeway Loop: Elijay, GA
Moraine State Park: New Castle, PA
Portal Trail: Moab, UT
Dirt Diggler Dh: Fernie, BC, Canada
Wasatch Trail: Telluride, CO
Elizabeth Furnace: Front Royal, VA
5 Miles Of Hell: Green River, UT
Garbanzo At Whistler: Whistler, BC, Canada
Oklahoma “Ankle Express” Hiking Trail: Braggs, OK
Hurricane Creek: Cullman, AL
R.B. Winter State Park: Mifflingburg, PA
Morgan Territory: Livermore, CA
North Star Ski Resort: Truckee, CA
Barr Trail (Pikes Peak): Colorado Springs, CO
Curiously Porcupine Rim is rated just a single black diamond by singletracks members so that tells you something about our list above! What other dangerous MTB trails are we missing?
