Disclaimer up front: This is a very difficult and dangerous trail to ride. It would be impossible to ride it from the bottom up to the top and requires advanced skills to make it safely from top to bottom. Be careful. Know your limits.
The first 2 miles of this trail are nice. Excellent, smooth, flowing, downhill singletrack through meadows. At about mile 2.8 all that changes and the trail becomes extremely rocky, steep, and dangerous.
It basically stays this way all the way back down to Alamogordo. Slick rock, loose rocks of all sizes (think scree), ledges, and pretty steep.
This trail is rideable, but you need to have: excellent bike handling skills, a nimble full suspension bike with lots of travel, and most importantly, nerves of steel. Body armor and disc brakes would be very helpful as well.
If the idea of dropping off a mountain and having your technical skills constantly challenged for the entire 2,800 ft descent is your idea of fun, then this trail is for you.
Keep in mind, when you make it down to the bottom into Alamogordo, you have to get back to the top (and there's no way you could ride up this trail).
Shuttling would be the way to go.
Extremely difficult trail. I rode it as part of a long loop starting in Alamogordo, riding up US82 to access Dry Canyon (T5574), and then taking A-Trail (T119) back down to Alamogordo.
I rode it once. I won't ride it again. Too rocky, dangerous, and steep for me.
The first 2 miles of this trail (from the upper end) are pretty awesome though. I might ride that section at the end of finishing T5574, and then just head back before dropping off the mountain into Alamogordo.
Excellent views of the Tularosa Basin!
I know this trail can be ridden. I've seen people ride stuff just as sketchy when I lived in Korea (and saw evidence of other bikers on this trail as well). Just not by me.
I'm going to rate this trail as an overall 2. The upper 2 miles of the trail probably deserve a 3 or 4, but the lower end of this trail is just too rocky, steep, and dangerous to justify anything higher than a 2.
My bias is for flowing singletrack though. Not hardcore, steep penalty-for-failure, doctor-visit-inducing trails.
Recommended Route:
There's really only one way you're going to ride this. From the top down. Period.
I'd recommend the upper 2 miles of the trail as an out-and-back, and avoid the sketchy descent down to Alamogordo. Unless you want a serious challenge.
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