Here at DirtBikes.com, we love hearing about and seeing cool places to ride, and our friend and contributor Jay Clark recently clued us into one, American Fork Canyon, Utah.
Located in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, about 40 minutes south and east of Salt Lake City, American Fork Canyon is part of the National Park System in Uinta National Forest, and it offers numerous camping areas as well as OHV and other land use opportunities, such as hiking, biking and equestrian activities as well as fishing. In winter, the area is popular with snowmobilers, showshoers and cross-country skiers as well. Access to the area requires purchase of a $6 permit that is good for three days.
Clark told us that he started riding American Fork Canyon about five years ago.
“We have a house near there, in Provo,” Clark said. “Both of my daughters are in college up there, so we are up there once a month if we can be.”
Never one to waste an opportunity to get off the well-beaten paths of Southern California’s OHV parks, Clark loves to take his 15-year-old son up to American Fork Canyon to get in some primo riding on the area’s pristine trails. The topography can best be described as mountainous single-track, with Trail 040 trail shown in the video being one of the Clark boys’ favorites. The trail, which extends approximately seven miles, is mostly single-track. It is one of many that make up the American Fork Canyon riding area.
“Nothing is even wide enough to ride an ATV on it,” Clark said. “It is totally real single-track, and there are about seven good water crossings. One of the few problems with it is that early in the season there are usually a lot of downed logs across the trail, but Rocky Mountain ATV-MC.com works in cooperation with the Forest Service to go out and clear the trails. They usually have everything cleared off by early July. Because of the snow, the season there usually only lasts from about June to November.”
The short season helps to keep the trails from deteriorating too rapidly, and it also doesn’t hurt that the area isn’t overrun with users.
“It’s cool because, if it was in California it would already be ruined because there would be too many people on it, and they would already have shut it down,” Clark said. “But it’s a beautiful area, and it is multi-use, which means that the trails are shared with mountain bike riders, horseback riders and hikers.”
Clark has no problem with that. He said that dirtbikers only receive the occasional stink eye from hikers or other trail users, but the best way to diffuse the situation is to kill them with kindness.
“When you come across a horse or a mountain biker, you just pull out of the way,” Clark said. “Most of the time the hikers will just step out of the way for you. Once in a while we get the dirty looks, but we just wave and tell them to have a nice day. Most people are really cool.”
Looks like a good time to us, only one has to wonder if Clark didn’t just let the cat out of the bag by blabbing about his favorite “fishin’ hole.” At any rate, if you’d like to learn more about American Canyon, Utah, check out http://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/uwcnf/passes-permits/recreation/?cid=STELPRDB5043532
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