USFS National Forest System Trails · Dakota Prairie Grasslands · North Dakota · Updated June 2026
Birnt Hills Loop (USFS trail 8010) is a 3 mi trail in Dakota Prairie Grasslands, North Dakota. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed year-round, with no Class 1 e-bike designation on record.
Can I bike Birnt Hills Loop?
| Use | Status | Season on record |
|---|---|---|
| Mountain bike | Allowed | year-round |
| Class 1 e-bike (pedal-assist, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 2 e-bike (throttle, 20 mph) | Restricted | — |
| Class 3 e-bike (pedal-assist, 28 mph) | Restricted | — |
Zooming out: across Dakota Prairie Grasslands, 100% of rideable trail miles are open to mountain bikes — a Bike Access Grade of B.
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About this trail
Birnt Hills Loop (USFS trail 8010) runs 3 mi through Dakota Prairie Grasslands in North Dakota. The figures here are pulled from the official US Forest Service trail data for Dakota Prairie Grasslands, covering the trail's mileage, tread, grade band, and the bike and e-bike uses the agency lists as designated. USFS records list its surface as native material. USFS slope data puts it in the Easy band (grade band 0-5%), meaning a gentle climb — keep in mind this measures steepness, not trail technicality. Mountain bikes are allowed, open year-round in the data. No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on this trail in the USFS data, so treat it as a non-motorized route unless a posted order says otherwise. 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. For day-of certainty on closures or seasonal orders, check directly with the ranger district, since this reflects the USFS data as of the latest refresh.
Frequently asked questions
- Can you mountain bike on Birnt Hills Loop?
- Yes. Mountain bikes are designated as allowed on Birnt Hills Loop in Dakota Prairie Grasslands, year-round, per USFS data.
- Are e-bikes allowed on Birnt Hills Loop?
- No e-bike class (1, 2 or 3) is designated on Birnt Hills Loop in the USFS data.
- How long is Birnt Hills Loop?
- Birnt Hills Loop measures about 3 mi in total, summed across its mapped National Forest System segments.
- What is the surface of Birnt Hills Loop?
- USFS data records the tread surface of Birnt Hills Loop as native material.
- How difficult is Birnt Hills Loop?
- 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 Dakota Prairie Grasslands (USFS trail geometry isn't mapped).
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