Gooseberry Mesa

Well now we are back in God's country, so there will be more than five exceptional trails. Can't help it. This one is near Hurricane, Ut. (make sure you locals pronounce it "cun"). Hung around Moab for many years and this SW quadrant of Utah is just as fantastic. www.utahmountainbiking.com does a very nice job in conjunction with the BLM's Gooseberry Mesa brochure, so there is no sense in me giving exacts.
Just a few things: Utah Mountain Biking is about .7 mi. short on the "Two miles later" for the "Getting there-South". It's about 2.7 mi. from the paved Highway 59 to the Gooseberry Mesa road. No biggie as of now-it's well marked until someone tears the sign down. Where they say "Now stay on the bigger road" it's the right-hand road immediately. The left road is just as big or bigger. This road I would recommend for 4WD. At any rate print out their stuff. They call some of the trails by different names than the BLM, but use them together. By the way, from the east on Highway 59 the road isn't marked. It's just past MM 8 to the right.
Us 60 year elders did (total 7 miles, 2 hours) Practice Loop, North Rim (and then we were pretty proud of ourselves, so) Yellow Trail and back on the two-track White Trail. The North Rim section is especially scenic and we saw some dinosaur tracks there. I was off of my bike (but not on my head) once in a while, but haven't ridden any slickrock in many moons. I've been stuck in "Agony" Oregon (make sure you pronounce Oregon "gun" as in I wanted to put one to my head) for some time. Almost crashed on the way back on the White Trail ball bearings due to overconfidence. Always pay attention on a mountain bicycle!
Great stuff and rivals anything in Moab or Fruita, Colorado. Awesome country! The well marked trails are wonderful, allowing a first-timer to participate. Novices and intermediate riders usually can take a moderate route around the markings, while experts should hug the white dots for thrills. This is a very unusual circumstance in planning and is a world-class set up.
I will be producing some hikes on this awesome mesa on my SW HIKES blog, as we don't do "extreme" biking. We will hike those and get back to you.
Inaccessible when wet!
Hope I can't get to Oregon from here.

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