North Table Figure 8: Best of the Descents

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If you want to get the best 'value for your money' riding at North Table, this is your route. Most of the other routes on MTBProject involve the boring north side, involve climbing one or descending one or more of the fire roads, or some combination of the two. This route, with only minor overlap, will get you the 3 (really 2) best descents, and potentially even more importantly, will tee you up for a frosty beverage at New Terrain Brewing afterwards.

Start on the east side of the park, either parking at the the East Access Trail or on Table Mountain Parkway near New Terrain.

Start up Lithic Trail until it meets up with North Table Loop after a handful of switchbacks. Take a left onto North Table Loop and continue up along the switchbacks. The climb is steady, but never terribly steep. Eventually, you'll come to an intersection where you'll stay right onto Cottonwood Canyon Trail, which progressively steepens and will get you up to the table's top.

Cottonwood Canyon Trail will eventually 'T' into Mesa Top. Take a left here and pedal your way across some mostly flat doubletrack until you 'T' into Tilting Mesa Trail. Take a left here and continue west until you reach another intersection. Take another left here onto North Table Loop - this is where the fun starts!

Descend the open, swoopy landscape on North Table Loop (after hooking left off the doubletrack) as it drops down the mesa and into the drainage, becoming progressively more technical and chunky - nothing high consequence, but may spook some beginners to take at speed or hit blindly. Continue along the south side of the mesa with great views of South Table Mountain, Coors, and Denver in the background. Make sure to stay left on North Table Loop and NOT turn right onto Neighborhood Access Trail.

Continue along the loop and you'll again be at the intersection of North Table Loop and Cottonwood Canyon Trail, where you'll head left to repeat the final 1/3 of the climb - it's worth it!

After again ascending Cottonwood Canyon Trail, go left again on Mesa Top. This time, take a right onto Rim Rock when you come to the entrance (note that Rim Rock is closed Feb-July, so you can skip this section and just take a right on Mesa Top from Cottonwood Canyon Trail in this case).

After the mellow climb, descend the fun flow of Rim Rock, hang left onto Mesa Top, and again get techy - this gets fast and loose in spots. Hang a HARD right onto North Table loop at the bottom of the descent then take a left on Lithic Trail to finish!