Jake Mountain Trails

I love this trail. I got lost on my first try, so make sure you take a map with you and study the system ahead of time. It can get confusing in certain parts. The 10 mile orange loop is great with its climbs and descents , its pastures and mountain range views.. and creek crossing. Make sure you get your caveman on and submerge in the larger creek.

I think I am in love with this system. I felt like I was lost in the wilderness. It was so quiet and pretty up there. Can't wait to go back. I need to remember to bring a towel for the creek crossings. ;)

excellent trails. far enough away from the city that it gave a remote, secluded vibe but wasn't actually too far of a drive. trails were pretty fast and flowy, nothing crazy technical, great all around trail system

If I could give this review a higher rating than 5, I would. This trail is amazingly fun and it makes you glad that you ride mountain bikes instantly. You gotta pay the piper to enjoy some of the awesome descents and flowy trails so don't get me wrong. Some climbs will challenge you beyond belief but, there's where any rider learns and grows. The scenery is second to none, the variety of trails constantly changes to keep you alert and excitement level peaking. The trail head is very easy to find thanks to an earlier review from Greg. Oh, I'm gonna be back here many, many times after today. Hands down the best trail Ive ridden.

Fun, fun ride. Watch for horses, but expect the riders to be courteous. Signage is pretty good. You Ann pick up a map at Cartecay Bike Shop in Ellijay.

Awesome trails with reasonable climbs. What's up with the old guy in the red van that hangs out all day in the parking lot?

sensing a trend here - so many mentions of horses on the trail. And for good reason ... I was there Sunday and there were 11 horse trailers in the Jake camping area (not visible from the day lot), so yikes! watch out for horses.

These trails are such a blast! Less demanding than the Bull Mountain side, but tough in its own right. The trail markings are getting better, but still aren't awesome. I typically start at the Jake Mountain parking lot and take the first hard right onto the Jake Mountain Trail. It's a fun, swoopy start with a couple of punchy climbs. For the most part I just keep taking right turns. Even thought I've been out here a bunch of times, I regularly get turned around. That's part of the fun though. Ride the Jake trails and then head over to Bull for a long day in the saddle!

And yes, lots of horses and horse shit. The vast majority of my interactions with equestrians have been friendly. I always stop, say hello, and offer to walk my bike by if needed.

The trail was good although it was covered with leaves. There were a lot of downed trees, but they have been removed from the trail path. The worst part was trying to dodge all the horse crap that covered the mixed-use trail.

Tough up hills, and fast flowing down hills, with some tight twisty switchbacks. Great weather (60's) made it even better being it was November 30th.

Never a disappointing mile at Jake or Bull. The hard uphill climb is always rewarded with an awesome downhill. Got to get up here and ride more to get ready for the Fools Gold 50 mile race

As always I had a great time riding Bull/Jake. The trails are in great condition so come out and ride.

This is an epic trail that deserves to up there on the greatest trails list. It has everything you want from climbs to downhills. Rocks, Ruts, Roots, Tight Turns and some whoop-de-do's. Every inch of the trail is a challenge and you can't ride it enough. This trail is about 35 minutes from my house and I don't ever mind the drive. If you are in the area, don't miss out on an epic ride.

I LOVE Jake mountain trails way more than the bull mountain side now, thanks to all the work from SORBA!

We start off from the Jake mountain trail head and take the Jake mountain trail north and then cut west on some trails to connect to the Bull Mountain trail head parking. From there, you can either ride the road back or take the "bull mountain connector trail" which is a really nice single track trail that will take you back to the Jake mountain trail head. It crosses over the road once or twice so just look for it on the other side.

Definitely recommend getting a map prior to going. Enjoy!

Almost the entire Jake Mountain trail has been relocated (as of spring 2011). Instead of a very steep, rutted trench, the new trail is beautiful bench cut trail with incredible swoop and flow. This is now a hardtail 29er's paradise! Also, the trail now starts right at the beginning of the Jake-to-Bull connector trail at the day use parking lot, not back in the campground. This really provides a much more seamless singletrack experience.

If you haven't ridden Jake Mountain recently, I highly recommend you try it again... you'll be thoroughly impressed!

Road the entire Bull Jake system during this trip. (Not a local) As previously briefed then entire area has had trail improvements. The SORBA has done an a superb job. This trail that was already an IMBA Epic, and now it is Northern Georgia masterpeice. Jake single track was well re-contructed, with proper turns, and climbs, descents. The trail was packed solid, and the only distraction was constant game of avoiding horse terds. I gave up after awhile. There is a creek crossing as depicted on the Jake trail map. It was a sandy, pebble composition, around 6-9 inches in depth, current light. Get the new maps with 223H trail name nomenclature. Go to the Forestry website, download the PDF. Maps were also available at both TH's. Trail junctions have brown plastic markers 3" in width, and 4' in heigth to assist in navigation. From the Jake TH I went up north to No tell, then around to Jones, then Bull 223F conector. (I rode the Bull loop first, lunch, then the Jake loop.) Over all it was equal climb / descent ride going this route. Mostly single track, and some very old logging roads, that might as well be classified as singletrack at this point. It was raining on day two, so I elected to not ride this trail again, but if the weather would have been dry, I would have easily repeated this route again. People sometimes sumarize a trails ranking and worth by wether or not it is worth the drive to the trail, well I drove from Savannah Ga. I will be back.

This trail was just relocated by the forest service in spring of 2011, and the new trail is amazing! It is much more sustainable with tons of benchcutting and it is very swoopy and flowy. This is now a crazy-fun trail! Definitely hardtail 29er territory, but of course you can ride it on anything.

The first mile or so of the trail has been recently "refurbished" with fill dirt to hide the ruts and errosion that were evident. Give it a good amount of time to dry out after a rain unless you just enjoy riding with 1/2 inch of GA red clay caked onto your tires. Unless you just plan on doing an out and back (what a waste) make sure you have an UPDATED map of the trails in the area. I've been out there twice and gotten lost both times because they keep changing the trail numbers and markers. The only updated map I could find was on the message board at the trailhead. Unfortunately I didn't bother to doublecheck the trail names on my printed map vs what the board said. If your map doesn't list trails by their three digit number, it's old! Jake Mt trail is now 299. My advice is take a local or a GPS. Tons of riding in the area but it can get pretty confusing, pretty fast. A couple of signs with actually trail names would go a LONG way to making this place better. BTW, the map listed here on the site actually shows much more than just Jake Mt trail. It has parts of No Tell loop, Jones Creek, and Nimblewill trail on it as well. Just an FYI for newbs to the area.* Review edited 6/29/2010