Shasta Mine Loop

1. Early March,

by riggsfoutz, Sunday, March 04, 2012 8:06 AM

We are from out of town but have wanted to ride here. Bike shops and the Park Rangers pointed us to the Shasta Loop area as the popular place for locals. Would definitely NOT do this on a hardtail, and would have trouble w even a good hardware store suspended. We had Kona Stinky, and needed them!
The first 20 min walking up the jeep trail out of the parking lot is hard, but that's 75% of the climbing to be done.
We got to the junction of the Shasta Mine Loop and the Prospect trail, and decided to lengthen the ride to add the Prospect and Clear Creek Canal segments. We had a guide book by Max Walter "North State Singletrack" that gave good enough description that we made only one short wrong turn.
There are two really cool creeks, both near the takeoff of the Prospect trail.
The Prospect trail section is lots of short ups and downs, and leads to the Clear Creek Canal trail, which is actually riding in the canal cut for bringing water to mining areas. Very flat, scenic.
If you don't know the area, definitely get a good guide book. we got ours at the Ranger Station near Whiskeytown Lake.
We prob won't ride it again, just because there's so many other trails to do. But is a great use of half day.