USFS National Forest System Trails · Santa Fe National Forest · New Mexico · Updated June 2026
Lake Fork Mesa (USFS trail 505) is a 1.7 mi trail in Santa Fe National Forest, New Mexico. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with Class 1 e-bikes also designated.
Can I bike Lake Fork Mesa?
| 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 Santa Fe National Forest, 63% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of B.
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About this trail
Lake Fork Mesa (USFS trail 505) runs 1.7 mi through Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. Everything below comes straight from the US Forest Service National Forest System Trails dataset — length, surface, slope-derived difficulty, and the specific bike and e-bike designations on record — so you can check legality before you load up. The tread is mapped as native material. Its grade-based difficulty is Easy (grade band +0-5%) — a gentle steepness profile derived from USFS slope data, not a technical mountain-bike 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 2 on the agency's 1-to-5 development scale, where 1 is the most primitive, minimally maintained tread and 5 is the most developed. Treat this as a planning reference rather than a live conditions report, and verify any time-sensitive closure or order with the ranger district that manages Santa Fe National Forest.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Lake Fork Mesa?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Lake Fork Mesa in Santa Fe National Forest, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Lake Fork Mesa?
- Class 1, Class 2, Class 3 e-bikes are designated on Lake Fork Mesa in the USFS data.
- How long is Lake Fork Mesa?
- Lake Fork Mesa measures about 1.7 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Lake Fork Mesa?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Lake Fork Mesa as native material.
- How difficult is Lake Fork Mesa?
- Its grade-based difficulty is Easy (grade band +0-5%), 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 Santa Fe National Forest (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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