Aaron Theisen worked in partnership with Visit Idaho to create this Travel Tip.
My riding buddy and I are cruising up a climbing Sandpoint mountain bike trail at the Sherwood Forest trail system in northern Idaho’s Panhandle, and we’re already making plans for our next ride. We’ve come up for the day to check out the trail network, and conditions are just right. Idaho’s mountain biking opportunities offer riders a variety of incredible routes much like this one. Wildflowers carpet the understory, the previous day’s rain has refreshed the rich soil under our wheels and a breeze blows through the cedar forest and cools our ascent.
“We’ll have to come back another day and start on the other side, ride the Rollers and Ripple and Pajama Party and—”
“Wait,” my friend interrupts. “I honestly forgot we weren’t here on a vacation!”
It’s an easy mistake to make when you are riding a northern Idaho mountain biking trail.
If Sherwood Forest lives up to its namesake, the town of Sandpoint, sandwiched between Schweitzer and the shore of Lake Pend Oreille, amplifies that fairytale feeling. Lake Pend Oreille, one of the deepest lakes in the nation, even has its own lake-dwelling, Loch Ness-like mythical creature. And while the Pend Oreille Paddler may or may not make Sandpoint its home turf, the pedaler sure does.
From the cloud-capped masses of granite that form the Selkirk and Cabinet mountains to the centuries-old cedar trees shading the lowlands, the landscape feels both vast and intimate. For Idaho mountain biking trails, that translates into perfect dirt and nature’s air-conditioning when summer heats up.
Mountain Bike Trails in the Syringa Trail Network
You can learn a lot about a trail network through its climbing routes. It’s easy to enjoy a high-speed descent; everyone’s a critic on a climb. By that measure, the Syringa Trail Network, just outside downtown Sandpoint, makes the (mellow, incredibly scenic) grade.
The Syringa Trail System stitches together a mix of private conservation easements and public conservation lands: Pine Street Woods (PSW), Sherwood Forest and VTT. The smooth, flowy machine-built trails of PSW accommodate beginner riders, whereas the trails of Sherwood Forest skew to the intermediate and advanced riders.
The trail builders didn’t skimp on the descents, though. From the twisty roots and tight rock passages of the expert-grade West Side Trail to the big banked turns of brand-new Momentum, riders will smile from bottom to top and back again.
Mountain Bike Trails at Schweitzer
Like the rest of the Selkirk Range, Schweitzer is a mass of imposing granite. That means dedicated downhillers can get wild on natural rock features and steep singletrack, but it also provides a solid foundation for flowy, family-friendly tracks. From the top of the Great Escape quad at the resort’s summit, riders can descend High Point to Bear Grass, an intermediate track with big banked turns and even bigger views.
Of course, if you’re searching for rocky technical trails, Schweitzer has those in spades, with Pinch Flat as chunky as Bear Grass is buttery.
Schweitzer’s trail system offers plenty for pedalers, too, with a collection of beginner and intermediate cross-country trails accessible from the base area. Thanks to a partnership between the resort, the City of Sandpoint, the Selkirk Recreation District and the Pend Oreille Pedalers (the local trail-building and advocacy club), Schweitzer connects to a large—and growing—trail system in the Schweitzer Basin below the ski area. Due to this collaboration, Sandpoint now boasts an epic summit-to-city circuit. The High Point trail continues past the resort boundary into the basin, where the fast, forested berms of Flo and Lower Basin deposit riders some 4,000 feet below the summit. A series of access points on Schweitzer Mountain Road allows for shuttling or, for the truly ambitious, the city-to-summit climb route. Fortunately, the vistas and huckleberry picking provide plenty of excuses for breaks on this Idaho mountain biking adventure.
From the top of the Great Escape chairlift at Schweitzer, riders can descend the Highpoint Trail to connect to Uleda Ridge and the Selkirk Recreation District trails down to the valley floor—some 4,000 vertical feet spanning 12 miles, almost all on singletrack.
Eventually, the Highpoint Trail will be part of the planned Watershed Crest Trail, a multiyear project that will circumnavigate the watershed on some 30 miles of trail.
Mountain Bike Trails at Mineral Point
Situated on a bluff overlooking Green Bay on the west side of Lake Pend Oreille, the Mineral Point Trail network traces six miles of mellow, shaded routes amidst a dramatic lakeside landscape. The Mineral Point Trailhead is located at the rustic Green Bay Forest Service campground, and riders can wrap up with drinks on the cobbled beach—or make a home base for a bikes-and-tents weekend.
Mountain Bike Trails at Brush Lake Loop
About an hour north of Sandpoint, the Idaho Panhandle National Forest constructed the six-mile Brush Lake Loop with mountain bikes in mind, and it shows: switchbacks are wide so that bikes can handle the turns without skidding, and the climbs are mellow and interspersed with quick descents. More importantly, it’s fun, with granite slabs and swooping turns aplenty. And the dock at the day-use area serves as a launchpad for post-ride celebratory cannonballs.
Change Gears: Go Beyond the Trails in Sandpoint
Sandpoint is a town worth slowing down to enjoy. Take a break from north Idaho’s mountain biking trails and take in the scenic small town. Riders can find tasty meals, shopping opportunities and awesome views before heading out on the Sandpoint bike trails again.
Après
Burritos and bikes go together like … well, burritos and anything else. Joel’s Mexican Restaurant is a Sandpoint institution for a reason, and its burritos—with plentiful options for both meat-eaters and vegans—are worth standing in line for.
Shop
Downtown Sandpoint’s Greasy Fingers Bikes N Repair has all the essentials. More importantly, owner Brian Anderson has firsthand intel on any trail in northern Idaho worth riding.
Support
The Pend Oreille Pedalers, the local bicycle advocacy group, built and now maintains most of the biking trails in the region, from Syringa to the Selkirks.
Learn more about the fast-paced world of mountain biking in Idaho and see why some enthusiasts keep choosing the Gem State’s diverse landscapes to ride.
Feature image credited to Aaron Theisen.
Aaron Theisen is an outdoors writer and photographer whose work has appeared in Freehub, Mountain Flyer, Powder, Backpacker and elsewhere. His passions are the big peaks and small towns of the Northern Rockies. When he’s not searching for obscure trails or sampling the region’s dive bars, Aaron can be found mountain biking and skiing around his hometown of Spokane, Washington.
Updated on May 10, 2023
Published on May 6, 2021
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