Let’s Go for a Ride: Mountain Bike Trails on the Colorado Plateau

4 Locations | Curated by Nicholas Nation, Northern Arizona University

When mountain bikes made their way out of Marin County, CA and into the rural west in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, few could have predicted the impact the machines and their riders would have on the Colorado Plateau. The large proportion of public land, unique landscapes, cheap accommodation, and waning extractive economies created a perfect environment for a counterculture sport like mountain biking to catch fire.

After Mike and Morgan Harris started building the trail system now called Gooseberry Mesa National Recreation Trail in the early 1990’s, they had no idea it would become such a significant attraction to the mountain biking community. Situated eight and a half miles from Hurricane, Utah, and twenty miles southwest of Zion National Park, “The Goose” as it’s affectionately known is one of the most…
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Stretching 142 miles between Loma, CO, and Moab, UT, Kokopelli’s Trail is one of the earliest publicized examples of a backcountry mountain biking route. The unification of Kokopelli’s in 1989 by the Colorado Plateau Mountain Bike Trail Association helped popularize a new brand of distance cycling – bikepacking - and inadvertently made the American Southwest one of the best-known bikepacking…
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The Mount Elden Dry Lake Hills trail system north of Flagstaff, AZ, traces its legacy of use closely with the history of the city. Dedicated in 1987, the network has steadily grown through community initiatives in cooperation with the Forest Service in Coconino National Forest to over 100 miles of trail. The proximity to town and rugged terrain give the illusion of a backcountry experience in an…
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Phil Vigil wanted little more than to explore. After relocating from Fairbanks, AK, to Cortez, CO, in the late 1980’s he found himself mountain biking on deer tracks and game trails across a seldom frequented patch of federal and state trust land five miles east of town. Despite his unexpected passing in 2020, his proclivity for route finding and engagement with the mountain biking community in…
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