Secret Trails and Hidden Canyons: Mountain Biking Gooseberry Mesa
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
Gooseberry Mesa has long been renowned for its rippled slickrock mountain bike routes which draw riders from around the world to test their mettle. These loops of rough slickrock and sandy singletrack cover the top of a massive mesa and are isolated from the valley below by vertical walls over a thousand feet high.
While I'd done a few rides at Gooseberry Mesa over the years, Christine and I headed back to Hurricane to meet up with Marcel, a friend of mine from Colorado, and we resolved to ride all of the singletrack mountain bike routes on top of the mesa. This would take at least a couple of long days in the saddle at our fitness level, but hey: is there a better way to spend a few days than riding mountain bikes, camping, and drinking beers with friends in the desert?!
Photo: Greg Heil
The only way to reach this remote trail network is via a long drive down rough washboarded roads that winds many miles up and around the back of the mesa. Even though you can see the nearby town of Hurricane while pedaling along the mesa's rim, it can take over an hour to reach the trails from town... but that length of time depends dramatically on the type of rig you're driving and the road conditions.
While our converted Dodge Ram Promaster van will get us into some surprising places with a little care and skillful maneuvering, washboards are absolutely soul-crushing to drive over. The stock tires are set to high pressures to handle the weight of the van, and the control panel will scream at you if the pressures drop even a few PSI. Even at 5 mph, trying to drive a massive cargo van down these endless washboards could rattle your fillings loose.
If we were going to make the arduous journey onto the mesa, it had better damn well be worth it!
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
Thankfully, beautiful campsites line the BLM roads on top of Gooseberry mesa, providing ample opportunity to set up camp for several days on this rocky island in the sky. While doing a mere day trip to the top of the mesa would be a soul-crushing drive, the promise of several uninterrupted days of camping, riding, and beer drinking goaded us onward.
Photo: Greg Heil
Almost all of the campsites on top of Gooseberry Mesa provide incredible views of the region, and we managed to score a fantastic site right on the rim. While the views and the trails are always on point, the amenities on the mesa are almost non-existent. The only thing approximating an "amenity" are pit toilets found at the three trailheads, but those might still be a long ways from your campsite. So, we made sure to drive in fully stocked on water, food, and most importantly—beer. Those who can thrive in this rough desert environment will find an idyllic mountain bike getaway like none other!
Day 1: Not-So-Secret Trail
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
After arriving with plenty of time to scout out campsites and choose an ideal location the day before, our first day of riding dawned beautiful, but warm. The main objective was to ride the "Secret" trail... an unsigned trail that isn't quite so secret anymore. We added the Secret Trail onto the more well-known classics like North Rim and South Rim to create a long 20-mile loop of rough-and-tumble desert rock riding.
It was Marcel's first true mountain bike ride of the spring season, and the punchy power moves up the slickrock slabs proved a rough entry into the spring riding season. Always game for a challenge, we still managed a long, tough day packed with views, alternate lines up and down rocks, shooting photos, and soaking in the majesty of Southern Utah.
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
We wrapped up our ride on the "Secret" trail, as a recent magazine article had extolled its virtues as the best trail on Gooseberry Mesa.
Our take? The other writer is swilling some bull shit. We found the secret trail to be overly tight and twisty, to lack flow, and to be not nearly as good as... well, basically all of the other trails on the Mesa. We rank it as our least favorite.
Sure, the Secret Trail did have its moments, including some fun slickrock riding at the end, but the sand pits earlier on more than compensated for the fun in the wrong direction. Just because a trail is a "secret" doesn't make it a good one.
Day 2: Not-So-Hidden Canyon
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
On day 2, we resolved to sample a few lesser known trails: Hidden Canyon, Windmill, and part of Gander.
On the way to Hidden Canyon we reveled in the cooler temperatures and intermittent cloud cover after the bluebird and blistering hot temps of the day before. I took some time to scout some more challenging rock roll alt lines on the slickrock domes along the South Rim trail, Marcel the photog always game to line up a shot. Eventually, we reached our first objective: Hidden Canyon.
Unlike Secret Trail, Hidden Canyon does have a trail sign, but few people ride this short cut trail as it means that you'll miss the best section of South Rim. But having just ridden South Rim the day before, we were curious to try something different.
While Hidden Canyon might look short and relatively flat on the map, this stretch of singletrack, if ridden in the proper direction, it provides a fantastic dose of speed and flow in an otherwise up-and-down trail system. We whooped and hollered as we swooped and flowed down superb serpentine singletrack, which of course was still interspersed with rock shelves to climb up and over. Some of the rock sections here are also decidedly different than the rest of Gooseberry, with narrow ledges and narrow canyons alike.
Photo: Marcel Slootheer
From here, we connected through North Rim to pick up Windmill. The pedaling on Windmill is quite a bit easier than much of the rest of Gooseberry Mesa, with swoopy singletrack interspersed by classic slickrock slabs. It still offers stupendous views toward Zion National Park, which got more and more dramatic as we progressed.
We followed Windmill straight into Gander, which interestingly left the rim behind, making up for it with fantastically swoopy trail interspersed by chunky rock gardens. Suddenly, gone were the expansive slickrock slabs and in there place were chunky, rocky desert singletrack. As a bobbed and weaved along Gander, I found myself comparing it to the best of the new trails built in Moab, Utah, which provide a more singletrack-style mountain bike experience. It's always a compliment if you're comparing a trail to Moab!
Photo: Greg Heil
We didn't finish the entirety of Gander and instead, cut out on a dirt road to return to camp. We only ended up with 15 miles, but after 20 the previous day (and 16 the day before that on a different trail system), we were more than ready to kick back in our chairs and drain a few beers, burn some firewood, and enjoy the good life on this beautiful rocky island in the sky.
While you can easily replicate both of the rides we did, based on my experiences on this trip, I recommend these two route itineraries instead to maximize the fun factor while still touring the best trails that Gooseberry has to offer:
