Ant Canyon/Eight Mile Canyon
Level of Difficulty: 6-Intermediate(Although much of it is Beginner, on gravel roads and jeep trails, about a mile of the route we took was more difficult, 5 or 6, steep and on a primitive 4-wheeler trail.)
Elevations: 5620 to 9203 feet.
Starting Point Coordinates: 'N42°26.944', W111°39.657'
Length of Trail: 61 miles
Approximate time: 3.5 hours
Date of Ride: August 5, 2006
From Hwy 34, Go East on Lago Road 2 miles, turn left onto Lago Liberty Road, go 2.1 miles to the unloading area. Click the map for point to point directions.
Elevation Profile (this elevation profile begins at Grunder Hallow Springs, because I accidentally reset my tracking at that point.):
My son and I rode about 4.5 miles and turned left. If you go straight the road connects just below Grunder Hollow. At the next junction we went straight and then turned off about a mile and a half from there to the left. This took us to a 4-wheeler trail that went down a fairly steep decent into Grunder Hallow Spring (marked in red). We hit the road again and proceeded about 1.3 miles and took a right up an another 4-wheeler trail which dropped us down into 8 mile Canyon (about 2.8 miles). From there we ran up 8 mile Canyon heading South, about 2 1/2 miles, just to see where it went. We recognized where we were from another ride so turned around to explore to the North.
About a 1/2 mile from where we originally hit 8 mile road we took a right up Skinner Canyon Rd. At the top of the pass we turn off the main road and rode a trail up to our highest elevation. We went down the other side to search for a trail up to the top of Sherman Peak, which we never found. We basically back tracked from there except we ended up taking a 14 mile detour down to Cold Springs Campground. We got a bit worried that my son's bike, a KX500 wouldn't have enough gas to make it back to the unloading point, but we made it.