Oh my what a great group of trails. While this is not a large trail system, this place has a ton of awesomeness! The sweet ribbons of dirt singletrack pass through forests of pinion, juniper or other assorted brush, wide open areas of slickrock and other technical rocky goodness. The ledges and other natural rock features also offer up plenty of "stuntage". All of this with a backdrop of Zion National Park, Gooseberry Mesa and the Virgin River watershed. With trail names like Guacmole, Holy Guacamole, Salt on the Rim and Lime how could you not have a great time out here?
Directions:
From the center of Virgin Utah (Post Office on right), you will trail east 1.5 miles on Hwy 9 to Dalton Wash Road where you will hang a left. You will travel 4.2 miles with the last half mile being a steep drive up onto the mesa. The last half mile could be really sporty in wet conditions so park at bottom in those conditions. The dirt road to the mesa is included as a track on the GPS files.Hazards: Bring your own water, none is available anywhere near the mesa. Uh don't fall off the mesa.
Ride Notes: I refer to waypoints contained in the GPS files and on the map. None of the trails are marked with thier name.
From GUAC-07 we took Holy Guacamole 1.3 miles to the southern tip of the mesa where we had some good views of Zion Nation Park as well as the north rim of Gooseberry Mesa from here. It was a lot more dirt singletrack on the way out to the southern tip that most of the early segments.
We countinued the counterclockwise action until we reconnected with the Margarita trail (GUAC-03) and turned north to head back to the trailhead. We when reached the junction of the Salt on the Rim trail (GUAC-02) we stayed on the Margarita trail and made our way back to the trailhead This was some grade A trail awesomeness and it will certainly not be my last time riding on this mesa. Our mileage came in right at 11 miles but your mileage will certainly vary. If we would have gotten here earlier in the day I could have seen us going back for a second loop in the opposite direction. That was not the case with us on this first trip. Shortly after we got off the mesa and headed back to St George we got into a good bit of rain. We were pretty stoked at our window of fortune with the rain and we were particularly glad we had decided to get a hotel room for this trip vice our typical camping arrangements. It was a mighty fine start to the weekend.
When it comes to where does this trail rate among the other iconic classics of this area like Gooseberry and Little Creek, Hurricane Rim/JEM etc... it is highly debatable and here is my two cents on the subject based on being an out-of-towner who has to make Hurricane/St George a multiday roadtrip to ride here. Gooseberry is the most of iconic mesa ride out here and if anyone in your group has not ridden Gooseberry it should be on the multi-day ride menu. If you are all veterans of Gooseberry, then either Little Creek or Guacmole should be done. If I had three days of riding available, I would shoot to do two of the three. If I had four days available, I might just hit up all three. Then again there are plenty of other rides in the area beyond mesa top riding. It is a good problem to have.