Leverich Canyon is a super fun Bozeman trail. This trail is on National Forest land and it’s a one-way, bermed, banked, jump filled romp!
The trip around the loop is not a major outing, it only takes around an hour for the 7km loop. The uphill is right on the edge of the uncomfortable climbing pitch. Just about everyone I saw on the climb was off the bike pushing. I guess I passed about 6-8 other riders trudging up.
The array of bikes on this trail was astounding: I’m on a dual-6″ travel “all-mountain” rig. I saw a couple of dirt-jumpers, a Ti hard tail, several “trail” and “all-mountain” class bikes and another interesting ride I’ll tell you about next…
Up on the saddle, I met another rider coming down from Sourdough Canyon. We spoke for a second right before the drop-in for the downhill. He was on an all-day epic, with a big 30L heli-drop backcountry backpack and a triple-clamp downhill fork. He offered to let me roll in first claiming to be tired, but I waved him ahead knowing I’d be stopping for some photos on the way down. I managed to catch him twice but it soon became clear why you might want a downhill fork and a slack angle…there is some real “big mountain” speed up there, with some fairly fast lines. Conditions were getting pretty blown out and I felt like the corners alternated between hero-dirt and marbles, but no way to see the difference until you felt it. I came up short on a couple of doubles and the lines on this descent show that it has been crafted for big speeds…
Back in the parking lot, I adminstered first-aid to another ride who came off. He had ripped up both hands pretty badly in the fall, but in between antiseptic and gauze he was already off and ruminating on the possibles alternate routes on the mountain…for next time.
Total time: 00:57:20