Not far from Santa Cruz there is a place where you can mountain bike downhill without climbing ALL DAY. This place is called Mammoth Bike Park. Located in Mammoth Lakes California (a six-ish hour drive from Santa Cruz), it’s a ski mountain by winter, and is converted into a mountain bike park in the summer and fall. This means you load your bike onto the chairlift, and in mere minutes, you can gain the elevation that would take hours of pedaling. To ride from the summit (11,053 ft) you load your bike in the gondola and gain 11,000 ft in 5 min. This place has everything from green beginner trails to double black jump trails to pro-line tech trails. It has it all! Mammoth even has that rare sign often found exclusively at bike parks that says “bikes only.” Mammoth also has a ton of wooden features like massive wall rides, berms, drops and even jumps! 

My favorite trail is called Velocity DH. This is a double black (and turns into a pro-line at the bottom) trail with a bit of everything. It has steep rocky tech, wooden wall rides, jumps, drops, berms and more weird crazy features. The feeling of excitement and the adrenaline rush that comes with going at high speeds down a double black trail is unreal. The element of danger makes it that much more exciting. This link is a little preview of Velocity DH. It’s GoPro footage of me riding it this summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw0dV191nJU

(When you click on the link be sure to click the little settings button at the bottom of the video and switch to HD for the best quality if it isn’t already selected)

If you’re not into mountain biking, then Mammoth has tons of great stuff to do off the mountain in the surrounding area including the Mammoth lakes to swim in and plenty of hiking trails. If you ski or snowboard, then be sure to come in the winter time as well and ski down the slopes of Mammoth Mountain, as well as riding in the summer. Overall, I would HIGHLY recommend Mammoth Bike Park to all riders no matter their skill level.