Moab Area Mountain Bike Trail Map

[Jeff Barber]

We need your help creating a map of mountain bike trails in the Moab, UT area for display in local bike shops. A few things to keep in mind when selecting trails for the map:

1. The trails must be legal trails – no exceptions.
2. The map should include a variety of trails for all skill level riders – from families to hard core pros. We even like to include 1 or 2 greenway / paved paths if possible.
3. We’re limited to 15 trails per map so only the best trails should make the cut.
4. Depending on the availability of local trails we may need to include trails up to an hour’s drive from the city center (50 miles or so).

Once we’ve built the map we’ll mail a laminated color copy to everyone who is able to help via this forum. We’ll also be mailing a copy to each of the local bike shops in the area so let us know which shops to include!

Here’s the first pass, in no particular order. Let us know which trails to cut and which one’s we’ve left off and we’ll go from there…

Amasa Back Trail
Baby Steps
Bar M Loop
Arches NP Main Road
Bartlett Wash
Burrow Pass
Dalton Wells
Gemini Bridges
Gold Bar Rim
Hurrah Pass
Klondike Bluffs
Monitor & Merrimack/Courthouse Pasture
Porcupine Rim
Portal Trail
Slickrock
Sovereign
Top of the World

[Hermosa]

– Hazzard County
– Lower Porcupine Singletrack (not UPS, illegal)

[Beaker]

Add: Flat Pass, Poison Spider

Delete: Arches NP (not a mtb trail)

[sgrooms]

-Moab Rim
-Porcupine Rim\Portal loop
-Jackson loop (Including the infamous Jacob’s latter)
-Pritchett Canyon

[Jeff Barber]

Thanks for the additional trails but I’m a bit confused.

Hermosa – The original list includes "Porcupine Rim" but you mention "Lower Porcupine Rim Singletrack" – is this different? Also I’m not sure what your note means – is this an illegal trail? If so we can’t include it. Also is Hazzard County a trail or an actual county with multiple rides?

sgrooms – you also mention Porcupine but include "Portal loop" as part of this listing. Is this just another name for Porcupine or is it another trail?

Beaker – I realize Arches Main Road isn’t an MTB ride but I’d like to include at least one ride that ANYONE can do in Moab – a nice family ride. If we delete Arches Main Road, will there be another family ride on this list?

Finally, for all the additions, we’ll need the trails to be added to the site before they can be added to the guide. You can add trails to singletracks using this form.

[Hermosa]

"trek7k" wrote

Thanks for the additional trails but I’m a bit confused.

Hermosa – The original list includes "Porcupine Rim" but you mention "Lower Porcupine Rim Singletrack" – is this different? Also I’m not sure what your note means – is this an illegal trail? If so we can’t include it. Also is Hazzard County a trail or an actual county with multiple rides?

.

There are a series of great trails above Porcupine Rim proper that drop you into PR above the initial climb: Hazzard County, Upper Porcupine Singletrack (UPS) and Lower Porcupine Singletrack (LPS). UPS is illegal though.

[sgrooms]

My apologies, I was referring to the Poison Spider\Portal loop. Poison Spider is often ridden as an out and back from the Dinosaur Tracks trailhead. You can catch the Portal trail at the top of the rim near the turn around. The Portal is a 4 mile section of singletrack that decents from the Rim to the Colorado River and Potash Rd. From there, it is a short and easy road petal to the dinosaur tracks trailhead. I would not recommend ridinge the Portal as an out and back from Potash.

It should be noted that the Portal trail is on a narrow ledge and very exposed in places. Mountain bikers have lost their lives on this trail. At the most exposed portion of the trail there is an obvious sign warning you and reminding you of past tragedy. Even for the most skilled bikers, the penalty for error is too steep.

You can also combine Gold Bar Rim and Portal.

[bonkedagain]

Regarding Porcupine, I would just say "Porcupine Rim" and leave it at that. Don’t even mention upper or lower.

The roads in Arches are narrow with practically no shoulders. It is not a place where you would take a family to ride, especially with gawking, distracted drivers. If you want an easy family ride then have people ride the paved bike trail from town that parallels highway 191 north of town (I don’t remember the name of the path). They have just about completed a pedestrian/bike bridge at Lion’s park that will allow you to cross the river without taking your life in your hands.

Another good family ride is Klondike Bluffs. the doubletrack up to the dinosaur tracks is an easy ride, and the kids get a thrill out of checking out the tracks. More serious riders can continue on after cresting the top of the ridge for more slickrock riding.

Portal is an interesting one (I was just on it a couple days ago!) As mentioned, some people like to do it as a loop with Poison Spider. Personally, I think Poison Spider is a life sucking sand pit and I will never ride it again, but, whatever… I have ridden to the Portal trail from highway 313 (the road to Canyonlands), down thru Gemini Bridges, over to Gold Bar, and then down Portal. That was a long day! Anyway, because of the high risk factor involved, I would make Portal a candidate for exclusion if you need to get rid of something.

For me, if you go to Moab you have to ride:

Porcupine
Slickrock
Sovereign

After those anything else is gravy and highly dependent on personal taste.

Btw, I add my vote to Beaker’s suggestion of Flat Pass.

[Hermosa]

Cool – forget I added anything.

[sgrooms]

I do agree with Bonked that Poison Spider is a sandtrap most of the year. Just adding more options to your origanal list. My top 5 "for sures" in no particular order:
-Porcupine Rim (An Original classic Moab ride)
-Slickrock (Needs no introduction)
-Sovereign (Fairly new singletrack ride in a place not known for singletrack)
-Amasa Back (for some reason I just love this trail, killer climb out, fun on the way back)
-Bartlett Wash (Unless something has changed since I were last there, its not particularly a trail, just a playground on some of the best slickrock you’ll find, play until your legs scream to quit)

[bonkedagain]

Oh yeah, and you may want to reconcile your list with this one from the locals: [url:1c3q0rj2]http://www.discovermoab.com/biking.htm[/url:1c3q0rj2] I think you got everything they mention, but I didn’t look closely.

[Jeff Barber]

Awesome, thanks for all the feedback thus far. Here’s the pared list w/ length, star rating (out of 5 stars), and the difficulty rating (Green, Blue, or Black Diamond) pulled from previous reviews.

I combined a few of the trails like Baby Steps / Klondike, also Gold Bar / Portal / Poison Spider, I hope that makes sense. Let me know how these lengths and ratings look!

Amasa Back Trail 11 miles 4* BlueSq
Bar M Loop 7 miles 2* Green
Bartlett Wash 5 miles 4* BlackD
Gemini Bridges 13 miles 4* Green/BlueSq
Gold Bar Rim / Portal Trail / Poison Spider 30 miles 3.5* BlueSq
Hurrah Pass 19 miles 4.5* BlackD
Klondike Bluffs / Baby Steps 15 miles 3* Green/BlueSq
Kokopelli Trail (how did I miss this on the first list!) 140 miles 4.5* BlueSq
Monitor & Merrimack/Courthouse Pasture 13 miles 3.5* BlueSq
Porcupine Rim 15 miles 5* BlackD
Slickrock 12 miles 5* BlackD
Sovereign 12 miles 4* BlueSq
Top of the World 10 miles 4* BlueSq

[bonkedagain]

It may be worth including Golden Spike in with the Poison Spider group. That trail links Gold Bar in with the top of Portal and Poison Spider. It is marked with gold spikes painted on the trail and an almost continuous line of oil spots and rubber from all the jeeps bashing themselves against the rocks. Lots of steep, lung busting climbs on that one — watching the jeeps grind over some of the obstacles, like the "golden crack", can be quite entertaining.

Oh, and Portal definitely does not rate a blue square. Even without the five hundred foot cliff that has killed three bikers it is a challenging ride going up or down. Definitely black diamond for that one.

[Jeff Barber]

Here’s the Moab area trail map draft; take a look and let me know what y’all think. Also help me check for typos, etc.

[bonkedagain]

Looks good to me, Jeff.

Is there any way to get the Colorado River and Highway 128 to show up more? Those are some important landmarks that help people orient themselves. It might also be useful to label Castle Valley.

[Beaker]

The map and descriptions arer awesome – very nice job!!

I would have to say tho that Bartlett Wash is a slickrock playground that can be as easy as you want and as challenging as you want…maybe give it a green circle – blackD (just my opinion)

I’ll be there 4/10 – 4/13…need anything???

[Jeff Barber]

Rad, thanks for the feedback. I’ve added the rivers and highways to the map plus I’ve updated the difficulty rating on Bartlett to a Green to Black to reflect the various terrain. Here we go, one more time:

[Jeff Barber]

If there are no further changes we’ll go ahead and send these to the presses 😀

For those of you who were able to help out – Beaker, sgrooms, bonkedagain, and Hermosa – please send me your mailing address via PM and I’ll make sure you get a copy.

[bonkedagain]

Probably a minor nit, but I think Sovereign is longer than 12 miles. I believe that without the northern loop it is about 16 miles, and the loop adds… I can’t remember, probably another 5 miles. Anway, I know it is way more than 12.

[Jeff Barber]

"bonkedagain" wrote

Probably a minor nit, but I think Sovereign is longer than 12 miles. I believe that without the northern loop it is about 16 miles, and the loop adds… I can’t remember, probably another 5 miles. Anway, I know it is way more than 12.

Good call. Looks like the 16 mile figure jives w/ the discovermoab website so we’ll go with that …

[Rebus ✓ supporter]

Jeff, are you going to make these available for sale on the site as well? Any plans for other MTB areas (Fruita, Crested Butte, Front Range, North GA, Pisgah/Dupont, etc)?

[Jeff Barber]

No plans to sell these but we are giving away the PDFs for free on the site. You can download the maps here (Moab coming soon).

The next maps we’re working on are Austin, TX; Charlotte, NC; and San Jose, CA. The feedback from large metros (like Atlanta and Denver) has been great so far but we’ll wait and see how the "destination" maps work out. If the shops dig the Moab map we’ll definitely consider other areas like Fruita and Pisgah.

[Rebus ✓ supporter]

Yeah, I knew about those, but liked the idea of getting a laminated copy.. I’m too lazy to hit up Kinko’s…

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