The Sun Valley area's summer thigh busting reputation gained a little strength this month when Bike magazine named the Imperial Gulch Trail in the Greenhorn Gulch drainage the No. 1 mountain bike ride in the United States.
The magazine's December issues says the trail, midway between Ketchum and Hailey, "offers forested climbs, beaver ponds, potential run-ins with moose and elk and stunning scenery of the Wood River Valley and Pioneer Mountains. Oh yea, and the high-speed singletrack descents aren't bad either."
A photograph of Imperial Gulch is on the cover.
But the magazine's take on local riding isn't something that's making everyone jump for joy.
"We know we've got the best trails around," said local rider Steve Deffe, who is also a member of the Big Wood Backcountry Trails advocacy group. "But we don't need everybody to know about it. And that might be selfish—I'm sure it is. But every year they get a little more crowded. It will get discovered soon enough, as it already has."
In Bike's article, Imperial Gulch rose above nine other trails that included rides in Oregon, Utah and Vancouver Island, B.C.
The magazine's editors pointed out that the survey was dripping with subjectivity. They said they compiled a large list of trails they had ridden and picked trials that stuck with them.
"It was a fickle, frustrating and entirely subjective business," they wrote.
On the Sun Valley area in particular, they gave readers the goods on several other sites in the region.
"Sun Valley, Idaho, is home to more than 1,100 miles of singletrack, including Adam's gulch, Corral Creek, Fisher Creek and Boundary Creek. The best, however, may be Imperial Gulch ..."
Sun Valley's growing reputation for mountain biking is not entirely a fluke. The Sun Valley-Ketchum Chamber and Business Bureau has been working with national media outlets for increased coverage in a variety of genres.
The chamber is currently working with Fly Fisherman magazine for possible coverage about the local area's blue ribbon trout streams in the coming year.
