"Cooper's Trail" - The Mice

The last few times that I descended Southern Dancer, I noticed a trail steeply intersecting on the right, fairly close to the bottom of the trail. After promising myself that I would go back and investigate it each time, I finally got around to it this afternoon. I have spoken with Peter M., the creator of Southern Dancer, about this route and was informed that it was an old, abandoned singletrack that he called 'Cooper's Trail'.

While it does not appear on the current, photocopied handout map of the Mice (numerous trails do not, but we are going to fix that pronto with a MiceMap release of our own) Cooper's Trail should definitely make an appearance on your next ride! I gave it a good cleaning and 're-cairning' this afternoon, so its good to go again. It is slightly more technical than S.D., offering steeper pitches over a shorter distance, but upon tough as nails, erosion-proof surface material (aka: rock).

Check out the map below to get an idea of its whereabouts. In a nutshell, here is how one finds it: drop out of High Pony, Bronco or Black Bear and you will hit the Dead Horse trail. Take Dead Horse to the north as usual, as if you were on your way to the Chute Out etc.

Keep an eye out for a ‘new’, well-marked trail appearing on your left, part way along Dead Horse (I collected enough rock there today, that you couldn’t miss it if you tried!). If you have the inclination to ride a technical trail, go for it; you will not be disappointed. Cooper’s Trail merges with the bottom of Southern Dancer, just before some of S.D's excellent rocky rides.

It’s all good - enjoy!

Andrew D.

Click the link below to see a much larger version of the map displayed:

Cooper's Trail (Large Map)




Andrew D.

After my easy ride on Saturday with my wife, I decided to do some proper riding on Sunday. I headed off towards Rusty via Fred's/some cattle trails that were not bike paths/then Corral/back tracking on more cattle trails. I made the flowly path across Rusty Muffler to Marmot and thought while I was on that side I'd try Cooper's.
Being more on the side of intermediate than advanced I chose to take it easy and not wreck my aging trailbike. This would have been a good idea had I not made the mistake of taking it TOO easy down a drop and pogo'd into endo onto my back. I little shaken up and some new marks to show my wife I carried on thinking about the lesson I just learned. Couple drops later I encountered an all to familiar event, though this time I was trying to run it out while still clipped in. That yielded even worse results. I am now a tad bit lighter as there is a 1" long x 1/4" deep chunk of tissue missing from my shin.
It was at this point I remembered Albert Einstein's the definition of insanity.

All in all, great little trail but next time I will stop and lay out more rocks for markers. I had difficulty finding the flow. If you should happen to find my shin, feed a starving chipmunk.

Thanks for the heads up on the trail !

Well, we rode Cooper's Trail today; didn't find shin nor hungry chipmunks..., but we did enjoy an extremely technical drop down this excellent and challenging trail. For those of you who have not yet enjoyed loosing skin on the Cooper's Trail; it is about as challenging as the BoneYard, but there are more and different sections to it compared to the latter.

Not for the faint of heart or ill-equipped...

Great work Peter M.!

Andrew D.

As of the last 'MiceMap' release, this trail has been renamed 'Dead Horse Extension', in accordance with Vance's wishes. The title 'Cooper's Trail' has been 'moved' to a short connector between Dead Horse and a section of Southern Dancer.

A.