Yesterday Nicole and I headed out East out of Portland towards Mount Hood to hit up a trail in the Sandy Ridge Trail System. This was another suggested trail by the local bike shop. We were pretty excited about it after reading the description. The trail, called Hide and Seek, boasts a rolling downhill with flowing bermed turns, rhythm sections and jumps. It was built specifically for mountain bikers which is nice because you don't have to look out for hikers and horses; also, there aren't dirt bikes making noise and surprising you around sharp turns. The trail system is off of HWY 26 about 11 miles East of Sandy, OR in the foothills of Mount Hood
As always, the bad thing about mountain biking is that if you want a long downhill section, the only way to get to it is 1)park at the top, 2) take a ski lift to the top, or in most cases, 3) tackle the grueling ride up the mountain on your bike. The first two options didn't present themselves, so we opted (or rather we were stuck with) the last option. To be honest though, the top of the trail is quite accessible on bike. You follow a paved road to the start of the trail that is a steady incline the whole way, nothing too crazy.
As you can see on the map below (the red line is the paved road, the green line is Hide and Seek trail), there are two places to catch the trail. At the top, 3.2 miles from the parking lot or 1.5 miles from the parking lot at the halfway point.
We took it pretty easy up the paved road and chose the halfway point. It is clearly visible with a post marking the trail.
Right when we got on the trail the fun started. There wasn't any uphill portions worth mentioning, just fast and curvy downhill. The trail follows a little creek down the canyon, but you wouldn't know it was there because of the thick forest. You only become aware of it when slow down for a turn and hear its trickle. There are bermed turns built into the trail the whole way down. Some sections were built with some sort of cinder blocks barely coming out of the dirt for more grip. These high turns were a little tricky to get the hang of at first, but we got better as we went along. Here is a picture of Nicole coming out of one of the sections with blocks built in.
I didn't do a very good job with pictures on this trip, sorry I don't have better ones for you. I'll get some closer ones next time. There were also several jumps built with landing spots to go with them. Riding the trail for the first time, I didn't hit many of them with a lot of speed, but I did get some pretty good air on a few!
When we got to the end of Hide and Seek back at the paved road, we jumped onto an easier trail called Laura's Loop that makes a .75 mile circle and has a shoot-off trail back to the parking lot. It was a good ending rather than returning to the car on the paved road. Next time we want to go to the top and do the full trail Hide and Seek trail. Hopefully we can make it soon so I can give y'all an update! Until then, happy riding!
That looks like so much fun. Nothing but flat single track here. You two will have a blast out there.
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