We recommend arriving in Whitehorse a day or two early to allow your body to adjust to local time and to make sure any flight or luggage days don’t spoil your trip.
We have a handy guide to spending 24 hours in Whitehorse with recommended accommodation and things to do in your spare time in the city.
Your guide will meet you at your pre-trip hotel in Whitehorse and take you for a short tour around this interesting city. At around 4.30pm we’ll transfer to our mountain ranch, 30 minutes’ drive away.
Over a welcoming and delicious Yukon-style dinner with locally-crafted beers we’ll go over the detailed itinerary for your week of unforgettable mountain biking in Canada, and build and tune our bikes.
For your first ride in the Yukon it would seem appropriate to show you one of the absolute ‘must-do’ trails: the Yukon River Trail. The Yukon River is a highlight of any trip to Whitehorse, and riding alongside the bright green waters seems almost unreal.
We will ride pencil-thin singletrack to follow the Yukon River as it flows back to town. We will bike past the historical former town site of Canyon City, where Klondike stampeders created a makeshift canvas tent city while they figured out how to cross the rapids without losing all their gear. These same rapids were said to look like the manes of white horses, which is how the capital city of the Yukon received its name.
As we arrive back at the lodge you can wash and plunge into the hot tub while your hosts prepare another locally-sourced, home-cooked speciality and fetch you a glass of red wine or a chilled beer.
Today’s ride will be a combination of classic favourites and new purpose-built trails courtesy of the local Parks and Recreation Trail Crew.
We will start in the alpine of Mount McIntyre, admiring the views of the Whitehorse valley and towards Fish Lake. We can even see all the way to Lake Laberge, the lake made famous in the Robert Service poem The Cremation of Sam McGee.
As we start the descent, we will ride through different ecosystems, starting in the alpine right down to the valley floor. While making our way back into Whitehorse, we will ride through parts of the 24 Hours of Light mountain bike race course and check out our new mountain bike skills park. As we pedal to our meeting spot downtown, you will be amazed at the amount of distance you have covered today on your bike!
Make sure you don’t hold back on breakfast this morning, you have a big day ahead of you! We will drive to the nearby First Nation village of Carcross. This is an alpine day with outstanding 360 degree mountain views!
You’ll have a shuttle to take you a good way up the access road, but there is still some stiff climbing ahead before you can reap the rewards of the awesome descent to come. After lunch at the summit, we will explore the old wooden mining relics before we descend down the Mountain Hero Mine trail.
This trail follows the tram line that the historic mine created to get supplies up and down the mountain. This stupendous singletrack descent will have your braking fingers aching and have you laughing out loud as we reconvene at the side of Windy Arm Lake.
Please note: This trail, more than any other, is especially dependent on weather conditions. Your guide will check the conditions in the morning and make the decision as to whether you can go ahead with the ride, or leave it for another day.
Today is a chance to rest and give our muscles a well-deserved treat. After another fantastic breakfast together we will visit the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, followed by a relaxing and reinvigorating dip at the amazing Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs.
The Yukon Wildlife Preserve is a unique wildlife viewing property featuring eleven species of northern Canadian mammals in their natural environment. We will ride the 5km circuit to explore the preserve and view the amazing wildlife. Encompassing over 700 acres with various natural habitats, the preserve offers unparalleled wildlife viewing and photo opportunities.
After our morning of wildlife watching we’ll spend the afternoon really treating ourselves to a dip in the local hot springs (and cold plunge pools!).
Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs is Yukon’s only hot springs and gives us the chance to soak our muscles in various pools. You’ll enjoy the luxurious rock pools containing natural hot spring water and have the opportunity to pass through the hot/cold/relax Nordic Cycle.
There are also two steam rooms (one is scented with eucalyptus) and two saunas.
Today we will ride the Grey Mountain trail network, which is a cross-country day with a flair towards gravity assisted mountain biking and smooth, flowing singletrack.
Your guide will pick the perfect location for our home-made lunch, about half way through the ride. Spectacular views of the Whitehorse valley and the coastal mountains near Carcross accompany us throughout the ride, and any technical climbs are immediately rewarded with awesome downhills.
Expect to pedal, laugh, and have the adrenalin pumping all day! This is what world-class singletrack mountain biking is all about.
For our final day’s riding in the Yukon we’ll drive to the village of Carcross to ride the lower Montana Mountain trail network. This mountain has undergone a transformation from a silver mining hot spot in bygone years, to a current mountain biking paradise!
Funded through the local Carcross Tagish First Nation, the Singletrack for Success program hired local youth to create mountain biking trails for the betterment of the community.
Set in some of Canada’s most beautiful scenery, these professionally built trails snake their way down the mountain and finish at the edge of Bennett Lake. After a full day of riding, we will return to the Mountain Ranch in time to enjoy a refreshing drink before our last celebratory meal together.
Sadly, this is the end of your fabulous mountain bike tour Yukon in northern Canada.
After our final breakfast and delicious Midnight Sun coffee to go, your guide will transport you back to the airport at around 10:00am in time to catch your flight back to reality!