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Does anyone have any info on what the longest descent in USA is?
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Great question!
Pikes Peak has to be up there with ~7,000 feet of vertical singletrack descent .
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Full Lemmon Drop Trail from near the top of Mt. Lemmon to the outskirts of Tuscon Arizona drops from about 9,000 feet to 2,800 feet in 29 miles. Not Pikes Peak, but still pretty impressive.-
Dude, sounds like Lemmon is up there–more than 6,000 feet! Is it downhill the whole way, or are there some climbs sprinkled in there?
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Lemmon Drop is a tough all day ride with lots of climbs. Many highlights including Green Mountain Trail, Bug Springs, Milagrosa and more. From the spruce, fir, aspen and pine forest to the Sonoran Desert outside Tucson.
Cloudcroft to Alamagordo, NM is another long descent. So is Brianhead, Utah with several different ending points and trails. Skyline Drive in Utah would also have many huge drops, to Strawberry Reservoir one I’d love to ride.
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According to this website, Full Lemmon Drop trail descends about 9,200 feet but also ascends about 3,000 feet in the process. I have not ridden it, but it sounds pretty brutal and technical. It’s actually a combination of several smaller trails. Temps at the top are a good 20 degrees cooler than at the desert floor. I might go ride a small part of it at the top of the mountain this summer. Apparently, the people that ride it love how significantly the scenery changes from the top to the bottom.
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The Whole Enchilada in Moab has a net loss of just over 7,000 vertical feet–more gross loss if you include the climbs and subsequent descents along the way.
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This one may get close to what youre looking for, The Cannell trail near Kernville, CA. 8100 feet in 25 miles, the last 7 miles having the majority of the decent (~5000 feet). Headed there in June!
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Not sure in the US at all. I think our biggest MTB descent in WI is about 400ft and our lift operated park has a net elevation of 170ft! Last Saturday I was in Ecuador and we started at 16k feet and descended down to 12k. We were supposed to connect another trail that dropped down to around 7k but it was raining big-time at the lower elevations. Next time!
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Pikes peak is about to get even longer when they add the new missing link trail to extend barr trail even further down to the chutes if im not mistaken
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I don’t think “longest” necessarily means most vertical right? If not then by total miles my favorite long descents are Hermosa Creek Trail(Durango, CO) = about 22 miles and The Whole Enchilada(MOAB, UT) = about 33 miles. Pikes Peak may have a lot of vertical, but the longest trail in Pikes Peak is the Barr Trail which is only about 12 miles in length.
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Monarch Crest is 34 miles with about a 6000 foot descent.
Three trails combined into one famed ride: The Monarch Crest Trail (14 miles), which follows a portion of the Continental Divide Trail, then turns north/left/down onto Silver Creek Trail (4.5 miles), and runs right into a portion of the Rainbow Trail (10 miles). The final 5 miles are downhill and paved back to Poncha Springs.
You’ll encounter everything: Singletrack, doubletrack, fire road, smooth and packed, rocky and loose, great views, and entirely fun!
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I’ll repeat after @Dirtyrig that longest is not necessarily most vertical descent. And Whole Enchilada comes to mind first. At least it’s a longest descent I ever done.
Monarch Crest while has a lot of descent still the amount of climbing is also significant.
That Lemmon Drop in Arizona intrigued me – definitely gotta try it one day.
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