Dark Hollow in Brianhead
This was Day 16 of my Summer 2021 Arizona and Utah Roadtrip
Holy Smokes this was one killer downhill.
Dark Hollow (126'▲, 4,800'▼):
Other Awesomeness: Bunker Creek and Blowhard
Hazards: The Views! Seriously the killer views both near and far all along this route makes it easy to pull your attention from the trails for just enough milliseconds to get you in trouble.
- Brianhead Peak TH: The parking area is just shy of the summit. It is worth the quick stroll up to the summit for some photo ops.
- Lower TH - UT143: This is a dirt pull out area just downhill from the junction with Second Lefthand forest road. This dirt pull area is used by the shuttle companys oftent with a trailer so be mindful to leave some room. There are quite a few spots further downhill on the road as well.
Shuttle Options: Dark Hollow, Bunker Creek and Blowhard Mountain trails are typically shuttle routes. There are three main shuttle services out of Brain head. I have only used Georg's Bike and Ski Shop.
I am pretty certain that all of you humans out there are going to aware that the trail starts at a little above 11,000 feet. The slight climb over the first 100 yards of the trail could end up being the most winded you will get on the entire ride. You start out on the Sydney Peaks trail which is travels along the ridgeline above the lift-assist park at Brianhead. There are some really nice long views up here. After a mile you come to a trail junction where you will hang a left and almost immediately start going downhill. The first section is the most bit of chunk you will see for the day. This trail used to be (so I'm told) used to quite chunky but the trail was wiped out by wildfires in 2017 or so. In 2020 the trail was rebuilt as more of a flow trail. After the short opening bit of chunk on Dark Hollow. There is a low of flowy bermy goodness.
You will go in and out of burn areas
Miles of Smiles
If you hate Aspens we can't be friends
Some of the Aspen Groves of out of this world incredible
More Aspen Goodness
It is worth pausing your rippage to take in these groves
At around 6.8 miles the Dark Hollow trail comes out onto a Second Lefthand Canyon Forest Road where you turn downhill. This things seems to go on forever but it is a masterclass in scenic landscapes with buttes, forests and hoodoos. There was obvious and significant damage along this road from the flooding that occured two days prior. For Trailfork users, this canyon is shown as the Dark Hollow trail as well even though it is not the trail but part of the route.
One of the Aspen Groves we rolled through The video our run down Dark Hollow and Second Lefthand Canyon
We interrupt your normally scheduled downhill run for these follies
After the ride we seriously thought about resetting and knocking out the Bunker Creek trail. We had made a leasurely start on the day. So we thought we would have been pushing daylight to get done with another run. Instead we decided to forgo a hardpress on the day. Bill had to make a long drive back to the land of adulting tomorrow and wanted to get a head start on it by shaving a couple of hours off the drive tonight. We drove seperately down into Cedar City where we had an awesome meat and potatos kinda dinner to celebrate another great adventure in the woods before parting ways.
Day 17 - Rest and Logistics Day
So I woke up feeling a bit tired and my hand hurting from our effort to make into a Friday Fails video the day before. Now I'm on vacation so things should not feel like work so I enjoyed lazing around for the day. I made a couple of tasty meals that day. I verified that some of my critical liquids had not gone rancid. I made a slight correction to alighment of the hammock at camp and I even managed to took care of a few errands that included setting up a shuttle for the following day.
Vacation Errands Day
Bring on Bunker Creek for Day 18's MTB Fun!