Day 2 : Jumping Pound to Cox Ridge - Mountain Bike Singletrack ride

(Canmore, Alberta)

We got up at 7am and got our gear ready for the ride we were going to do today was Jumping Pound & Cox Ridge. It was fairly cloudy but not raining. The views from Canmore were very scenic with mountains to the North & South.

We decided to go and have breakfast at Craig’s Family Restaurant (1727 Mountain Ave, Canmore) right next to the hotel, to fuel us up for the days ride. Clare had scrambled egg, bacon and toast, and I had french toast and egg's. The food was pretty good.

We then packed the bikes and drove 20 minutes east along the 1 and turned off and waited at the Stoney Nakoda Resort car park to meet up with a Canadian couple I'd made contact with via Mtbr forums.

When they had arrived we said hello's for the first time in person, and then we followed Gary & Patty's SUV along the 40 and then onto the powder face dirt road. We dropped off our suv at the end of the trail and then all piled into Gary's SUV to drive to the start of the trail at the Canyon Creek Trail head which took about 20 minutes.

Video of Jumping pound singletrack climb (6MB)

After a fun initial section of trail down hill, the jumping pound trail climbed relentlessly up through the trees, with many switch backs. The trail was 100% rideable, the only problem was the lack of air due to the altitude which made riding up the steep trail quite tough, and eventually our sea level legs had to stop to have a rest.. also it was quite hot and humid and it got quite sweaty riding up the slope in the trees. This trail varied from being narrow singletrack to a doubletrack, and the ground was fairly tacky.

Eventually we broke out of the trees into a clearing and were able to see the views, it was good riding with another couple as I was able to ride up the hill with Gary and my own speed, and not have to worry about Clare being eaten by a bear if I got to far in front as she was riding with Patty.

View from jumping pound trail to the west

The trail continued climbing up along jumping pound ridge through alpine meadows, the singletrack was narrow and varied from being buttery smooth to loose rocks.

Video of Jumping pound ridge alpine singletrack (3MB)

Video of Jumping Pound singletrack (10 MB)

Fantastic views from Jumping pound ridge singletrack

The trail climbed gradually with several ups and downs, occasional going through patches of tree's

Video of Gary on the only man made jump on the trail (10MB)

Video of Jumping pound ridge singletrack (4MB)

Video of Jumping pound ridge singletrack (7MB)

One section of the trail dropped down steeply over some rocky sections, this part of the trail was so much fun that once the ladies had caught up we pushed our bikes back up the slope to give it another go.

Gary and me heading back down the hill, well worth pushing the bikes back up the hill,

After that section of down hill the trail headed downwards to the start of the Cox Hill trail, which again headed upwards, after a slog up through the trees with some nice rocky rooty sections the trail again came out into alpine meadows.

The cox hill trail continued to climb up through the meadows , with even more great views on either side of the ridge.

Even when riding along the ridge there were still sections of trail that were pretty tough and had us off our bikes at times.

Cox Hill Ridge Singletrack (10.5MB)

Group Shot at Cox Hill Summit

We stopped at the Summit of Cox Hill and took some pictures and had some food, before setting off down the Cox Hill trail, the first part of the trail headed down a very steep slope , which and off camber drop to the side, which switch backed down through the meadows.

Video of Cox hill singletrack Descent (35MB)

Once the trail got into the trees it became very rooty and rocky and much dryer even dusty in places, and was a real blast. Clare came a cropper heading down the slope and grazed her knee, but it was a fairly minor scrape so we carried on riding down the hill.

Video of jump on lower section of Cox Hill down hill

Video of final sections of singletrack on Cox hill (23 MB)

At the end of the trail me and gary headed back along the powderface road to pick up his SUV.

After we had got back to the end of the trail we said our goodbyes to Gary and Patty who had been great riding companions, and headed back to Canmore.

Here's the gps trail of the ride , the ride was pretty tough even though my cycle computer said we had only ridden 12.62 miles. With a lot of climbing and plenty of hike a bike for Clare. But the singletrack sections on the ridges and and the down hills were brilliant. And the views were pretty good as well.

I was glad that that we had done the ride as a shuttle as the ride along the powderface trail would not have been a pleasant one, as whenever a vehicle went along it a massive cloud of dust went up, also it had some quite long steep hills.

We headed into Canmore and bought some bear spray from the Valhalla Pure the can of spray was much bigger than I expected almost a foot long, we also bought some soap and bubble bath from Rocky Mountain Soap company we then headed back to the hotel and got cleaned up, before heading back into Canmore to have dinner, we went to Grizzly Paw Brewing Company. I had ribs and a Root Beer (free refills) and Clare had a Burger, the food was OK but the service was very slow. It was nice and warm sitting outside.

DAY 3