Nichol and I started out 2017 with a bike ride out on the Blue Diamond trail system just outside of Las Vegas.
It had rained a bit the previous two days which I am pretty such set this place up for near-perfect trail conditions. It was a little brisk out (by us San Diego weather weenie standards) but long sleeves or a second layer fixed that.
We basically followed this route from MTBProject with a couple of slight variations. Another good site for trail info out here is Trailforks. Of course chit-chatting with the folks at McGhies Bike shop where this loop starts from it always a good call. (16 Cottonwood, #B, Blue Diamond, NV 89004)
The counterclockwise loop we did started out from town and connected up with the Landmine Loop trail up and over a saddle where we then turn mostly westward. This was some quality cross-county desert cruising action.
From Landmine we turned on Southcut and then picked up the Lawnmower Saddle trail where we did a bit of climbing before dropping down to connect up with the Rubber Ducky trail.
After Rubber Ducky we were had a nice long stretch of barely needing to pedal buff goodness.
We eventually connected back up with the Landmine Loop trail where the trail got a little more rockier for a while before we got back into mostly buff trails.
We did have some clouds shadow things up a bit off and on but for the most part we beautiful blue skies with big puffy clouds for the bulk of the ride.
If you look closely you can see some board members of the Pacific Crest Trail ASSociation out tromping around off trail.
We closed off the loop with a fairly mild bit of climbing with a couple of gullies to navigate. This was a nice loop and I’m looking forward to getting back out here and exploring the rest of the trail network that is out in this area. The only other riding I have done around Las Vegas has been The Cowboys Trails just up the road a bit from Blue Diamond. At some point I’m going to check out Bootleg Canyon as well.