Just 45 minutes from the Las Vegas strip sits Lee Peak reaching 11,289 feet into the sky. At the base of Lee Peak is Lee Canyon Bike (and Ski) Park. When it's scorching hot on the strip and in the Las Vegas valley, a drive to Lee Canyon will reward you with temperatures that are 30 degrees cooler, actual trees that are native to the area and a ski lift that will carry you and your bike up a mountain so that you can bomb your way down over and over again.

Driving up the will will reward you with a picturesque drive as you graduate from desert at the bottom, to joshua trees as you travel up the hill until you reach the higher elevations where you'll be greeted with tall sequoias and other pines.

Lee Canyon is part of the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest which is part of the larger Spring Mountains National Recreation Area which includes Red Rocks. In the summer it is great for hiking, cycling and bird watching which means there's activities for your non-cycling fiends if you're here visiting Las Vegas.

I'm writing this article at the end of July and there are currently only 2 trails open which are considered advanced and expert.  The word is that by early August there will be a beginner trail open which should be suitable for anyone who knows how to shift gears and use brakes.  If you've ridden some dirt trails, I do think the advanced trail is safe for all mountain bikers, but you may not find it incredibly fun at first until you figure out how to ride it. The trail is called a "flow trail" which are trails with high berms (banked corners) and sculpted sections which can very easily send you in the air.  It's possible to stay heavy on your brakes and cruise down slowly, but you may end up with some fast riders on your tail and it's customary on advanced and expert trails for slower riders to pull over and yield to faster riders. Once the beginner trail is open the etiquette is different and the slower riders are to be respected and to let them ride peacefully at their own pace without faster riders asking them to pull over.

The hill is equipped with rental bikes from Trek which land in the Trail and Enduro category. There are no DH (downhill) bikes and that's for good reason as the trails are simply more suited for an enduro style bike which has less travel and weighs less than a comparable DH bike. Their rental bikes are the Trek Slash and the the Fuel EX.  The Slash has more travel and is more slackened (better for descending) than the Fuel EX and probably better suited for the riding.  If you're planning on exploring the XC (cross-country) trails where you will be pedaling up some hills, you'll want to rent the more nimble Fuel EX. Also available are helmets and knee and elbow pads which I recommend. Falling on a bike is a little more painful than falling on skis.

Blue Butterfly

The advanced trail (named Peanut Butter and Flow on Strava up until July 20 but was just renamed to Blue Butterfly) is a 1.7 mile Flow trail built by the famous team at Gravity Logic who have built 100's of miles of trails all over the world starting with their work at the famous Whistler Bike Park in Canada. As mentioned earlier, this advanced trail is a flow trail which is highly sculpted with big berms that are fun to ride fast with features that naturally send you in the air.  These trails are basically roller coaster rides on your bicycle which can be ridden fast and where the goal is to find the "flow" of the trail that gets you to the bottom using minimal brakes and discovering all the best line choices to help you down the hill.

The Expert Trail

The Expert Trail doesn't seem to have a name yet, so it's just the expert trail at Lee Canyon. As far as expert DH trails go at bike parks, it's a pretty mellow .9 mile trail that does require some bike handling skills as it's steep in sections and is littered with a few rocks and roots. If you've been riding mountain bike trails for a few years, you'll probably find your way down without too much trouble, but you'll definitely want to be at the point where you understand the value of shifting your body weight to the rear of the bike. This is considered "technical singletrack" where the corners are less sculpted, the trail is more natural (than a flow trail) and you encounter the natural elements of a mountain (rocks and roots) on the trail.  There are no gap jumps (jumps where there is no land between the take off and landing) and you can pretty much brake your way to a complete stop at any point. You never have to fully commit to a feature making it a friendly expert trail as far as expert trails go.

And For Beginners?

The beginner trail will be open in early August.  Beginner trails are like the bunny slopes of ski mountains. If you know how to operate the brakes, you'll likely be fine heading up here for some fun. Beginner trails are wide and designed to avoid any steep sections to help you learn the way of DH biking. There are also lessons offered for beginning riders to help you with the learning curve.

Final Word

Grab your bikes, or rent some when you get to the mountain and go ride! The weekdays have very little traffic and you can ride without lines and without many people on the mountain.  I hear the weekends are busy so I avoid those days since I can.