USFS National Forest System Trails · Eldorado National Forest · California · Updated June 2026
Flume (USFS trail 11E42) is a 3 mi trail in Eldorado National Forest, California. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with Class 1 e-bikes also designated.
Can I bike Flume?
| Use | Status | Season on record |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain bike | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 1 e-bike (pedal-assist, 20 mph) | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 2 e-bike (throttle, 20 mph) | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 3 e-bike (pedal-assist, 28 mph) | Allowed | year-round |
Zooming out: across Eldorado National Forest, 94% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of A.
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About this trail
Flume (USFS trail 11E42) runs 3 mi through Eldorado National Forest in California. This profile summarizes what the official US Forest Service trail record says about riding it: how long the trail is, what it's built on, how steep the route grades out, and which forms of bike use the agency has designated. USFS records list its surface as native material. Based on slope, this is a Intermediate trail (grade band 10-12%); that reflects moderate gradient and is not the same as a technical MTB difficulty rating. Bike use is designated as allowed year-round. The record additionally permits Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 e-bike use; recall that Class 1 is pedal-assist, while Class 2 adds a throttle and Class 3 a higher cutoff speed. The route is mapped as USFS Trail Class 3 on the agency's 1-to-5 development scale, where 1 is the most primitive, minimally maintained tread and 5 is the most developed. Because conditions, closures, and local orders change between data refreshes, confirm the current status with the managing ranger district before you ride.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Flume?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Flume in Eldorado National Forest, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Flume?
- Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 e-bikes are designated on Flume in the USFS data.
- How long is Flume?
- Flume measures about 3 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Flume?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Flume as native material.
- How difficult is Flume?
- Its grade-based difficulty is Intermediate (grade band 10-12%), derived from USFS slope data. This reflects steepness, not technical mountain-bike difficulty.
How we read this data
Grade-based difficulty above is the USFS grade (route steepness), not a technical mountain-bike rating — a gentle-grade trail can still be rocky or technical, and vice versa. Bike and e-bike status come verbatim from the USFS managed-use fields for this trail; we never infer access we can't cite. See our methodology for how the dataset is built and what each field means.
Where it is
Approximate location of Eldorado National Forest (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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