Start Point: Popperton Park, 4860 feet
High Point: Bobsled start, 5800 feet
Trail Distance: 5.9 miles (round trip)
Trail Time: 1 hour
Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Best Season: Spring/Fall
The Bobsled is easily Salt Lake City’s most popular, notorious and swooping-fun downhill ride. It’s a wild descent from the Bonneville Shoreline Trail filled with a semi-technical series of rutted single track, stream beds, banking turns, jumps, obstacles, low-hanging branches, and several abandoned cars. Any mountain biker will tell you it is the only way to ride down between City Creek Canyon and Dry Creek. But because of its technical difficulty, Bobsled is a sort of test piece for the Bonneville Shoreline area. Talk to a fellow biker about riding above Salt Lake City, and they will always ask if you have tried Bobsled. There are a few good ways to get to The Bobsled, but the description below via Dry Creek Canyon is my favorite route.
Getting There: From South Temple in Salt Lake City, drive east to Virginia Street below the University of Utah. Turn left and drive 7 blocks to Popperton Park. You’ll pass the campus of Shriners Hospital on the right. Turn right on Popperton Park Way and park your car along the road by the grassy fields. This is a popular start and finish for a loop ride on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail from Dry Creek to Bobsled
The Ride: From Popperton Park, ride east on the paved street as it steadily climbs toward a swanky, gated neighborhood. In about a quarter-mile, hop off the road onto a paved bike trail the appears on the right. The trail circumvents the neighborhood and soon becomes very steep as it rises toward Dry Creek Canyon. It’s a good warmup before the real deal. In .75 miles, you’ll go downhill past a metal gate to the mouth of Dry Creek.
This is when the fun begins. Pedal on the trail as it winds back and forth up the creek. Overall it’s a smooth ride with the occasional rocky, technical section. At mile 1.75, the trail makes a sharp switchback and heads southwest back toward the city. A quarter-mile later, you’ll find a large, flat area at 5,600 feet with a sweet view of the city far below. This is a great place to take a break, adjust your bike, and have something to eat.
Continue by riding northwest on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail as it traverses across the Salt Lake City foothills. The trail is very well used, maintained and can be crowded. Watch for runners and dog-walkers as you bomb around banked curves in drainage bottoms. 2.9 miles into the ride, you’ll be below that locals call “Puke Hill.” This is a steep part of the trail that goes straight up and is a good test piece for your aerobic ability. After Puke Hill, keep going for another mile until the start of The Bobsled. You’ll know you’re there by a dirt pullout that sometimes has a makeshift bench. The Bobsled Trail goes directly south into a grove of scrub brush. (If you reach the major intersection, you’ve gone too far but can still ride lower Bobsled by going south down the steep and loose-rock hill.)
The Bobsled is 1.5 miles and nearly 1,000 feet of pure fun. The highlight of the ride for most mountain bikers is the swooping curves and turns that snake along a natural halfpipe in the canyon bottom. More advanced riders will get air on man-made jumps that shoot over old abandoned cars and gaps. It’s one hell of an experience and the most fun a mountain bikers can have on a bike in Salt Lake’s foothills.
At the bottom of the Bobsled, you’ll be at the bottom of the creek. Follow it until it ends at a very steep hill that climbs up to Chandler Drive. Cross the street, then get off your bike and carry it over the guardrail to a trail that connects to dirt access roads. Ride down this road to 11th Avenue and go east on the street back to Popperton Park and your car. It’s a sweet loop that you can do in less than an hour, or keep riding over and over again.