Klondike Park

Klondike Park

Klondike Park is a very large county park. It is often confused as a state park because of the massiveness of it. I don’t necessarily want to turn this into a commentary about trails, because others have already done that. I want to make this into a first person’s journey through my favorite trails in the area of Eastern Missouri. I started at Klondike so the first journey recorded will be Klondike. I started up this hill when I got out of the parking lot and it just plain sucks. You really want to stop no matter what your athletic level is, but don’t. It is a total trip when you get to the top. Now you can go left or right. Right will take you to a beautiful ledge over the Katy Trail and left will take you to the Hogsback Trail. There are a lot of people there on nice days so really be careful about going fast on this first section. It gets a lot less foot traffic when you start descending down the awesome maze of single track down the side of rock and mud. I tend to leap first, and then look later. My first descent was right off a rock wall. My bike flew down while I grabbed on to a small tree. I ended up just letting go and dropping down a steep decline almost to the end of the whole Hogsback trail. I did end up bending my derailleur pretty good so I had to stop and fix that for a few minutes. I got back on and continued to the next obstacle. Once you get done with that, you have to bike on the roadway till you find the hidden Powerline trail. This trail rocks, for the fact that you can fly through it. They have the more difficult technical aspects back here. There is a small log ride where you can try out your control, as well as some other man made ramps that will trash you up if you know very little about riding. Heck, it will trash me up too, because I go big or go home. If you have a nice bike, have fun back here, but if you are new and have a cheaper bike, don’t try out these ramps. YOU WILL BREAK YOUR BIKE! Here is where the fun starts and ends. It is called the Donkey Kong. Bike through a maze of forest and end up looking down a small cliff. Guess where you got to go. The answer is down, and I welcome it. The first time I tried the jump I didn’t see it. The place where you land is a sand pit, so it just grabs your tires, followed by a rock wall you ride straight down. My recommendation is for you to ride through it and not stop. You will fall. There it is, the Klondike trail in a nutshell. I recommend it, as well as love riding it!