New trail to Sweet Connie, Stack Rock provides plenty of entertainment

L-R, Doug Lawrence, Steve, Jim Young and Mack Lyons on Stack Rock. 

The new trail to Stack Rock has a number of open vistas on the sunny side of the ridge. Nice for cold-weather conditions.

Hi all,

Several of my mountain bike buddies and I rode the new trail over to Stack Rock last week, and we thought it was a blast!

The new trail provides long-term public access over to Sweet Connie junction, and it takes you on a loop around Stack Rock.

Total trip mileage was 12.3 miles to do the loop around Stack Rock. Vertical gain was 1,107 feet, but it seemed like more than that. Travel time was more than 2 hours with several stops along the way for photo ops at Stack Rock, and lunch at Sweet Connie.

Tracks from Bogus Basin Road. 

I would rate the ride strong intermediate, moderate to strenuous in terms of difficulty.

The new Forest Service trailhead is closed for the season, but you can still access the trail by riding your bike from a right-side pullout along Bogus Basin Road, or from parking elsewhere and riding from the top of the trail.

David Gordon, Ridge to Rivers trail coordinator, laid out the new trail. Thanks Dave! Nice work! And a trail construction crew, Cuddy Mountain Trails out of Cambridge, Idaho, did the trail construction. Ridge to Rivers handled all construction contract oversight.

The new trail is slightly downhill on the way over to Sweet Connie junction, and it's slightly uphill on the way back. There are a number of entertaining features where you thread through some granite pillars and that sort of thing. It's a great trail for hiking, biking and trail-running, and it's open to horseback riding as well.

My GPS didn't capture the full mileage because of tree cover, stops or something ... it's more like 12.3 miles. 

It's a quick 3 miles or so over to Sweet Connie junction, and then you can decide if you'd like to ride counter-clockwise or clockwise on the lolly-pop loop around Stack Rock. We did it clockwise, which means you're going to climb a very strenuous granny-gear pitch in the approach to Stack Rock. But it's super fun the rest of the way. Both ways are doable.

I have a feeling that the new trail is going to make the Sweet Connie descent to the Bogus Basin trailhead, Peggy's Trail or Hidden Springs even more popular in the future.

Enjoy!
- SS