Belgians in the desert

After a recent trade show in Las Vegas, I headed out into the desert with a couple of friends to ride some of the best trails this planet has to offer. While Las Vegas may be hell on earth, some of the most unbelievable riding is only hours away. In previous years we had done Moab, Brianhead, Sedona. This year we were returning to Hurricane to do Gooseberry mesa.

The road train out of vegas


A new twist this year - the Belgians were coming. Peter and Gino had spent the week looking at bikes and draining Las Vegas of its alcohol supply. Peter had done some riding on the west coast, Tahoe, Oakridge, etc., but this was his first foray into the sands of Utah. Gino, well...Gino was scared of big tires and full suspension. Coming with us for the first half of this two-day adventure was Semmyo from Japan, my eternal rival and superfit salaryman.

Departing Saturday noon-ish from Vegas, the goal was to hustle straight to the trailhead and ride gooseberry before it got dark. Catch #1 - Semmyo had a brand new bike and it needed hardware to mount the calipers to the frame. Stopping at the bike shop. Catch #2 - the front brake needed to be bled and basically didn't stop. Damn. Whatever, we decided to go for it anyway. Luckily, just as we were finishing, Greg and Wes and the REI junket finished their ride, and Karl was kind enough to loan us his full suspension ride, complete with working brakes. Thanks Karl!

Chaos at the trailhead


And so to the trail we went. For those who haven't ridden gooseberry, it's a big plateau of undulating slickrock. You roll around a physically demanding skate park made completely of stone for about an hour, until you pop out onto the rim of the plateau and are given outstanding views of the valley below. From there, it's tasty singletrack along the edge of the cliff until you come to the point of the plateau, where we arrived right at sundown. Now, let me just say that you could not possibly pick a better time to be on that place. The colors of Zion national park behind, and all the canyons and mesas in between, were simply amazing. Sadly, it soon became dark and we had to eschew the last few miles of singletrack to boogie back on the road. Whatever. It was a fantastic ride.

Gino's belgian energy supply




The fastest japanese salaryman in utah


Gooseberry is a sea of undulating rock - beautiful and challenging




The green machine looks gooooood....


Peter gets his groove on


Gino finally started working the suspension bike


The reward was a stunning sunset at the edge of the plateau


Semmyo left to go find his stranded wife in Vegas and the Belgians and I crashed early. Morning brought a big american breakfast (Gino couldn't believe americans ate waffles for breakfast) and a drive up to the trailhead. Gino, remembering the heat from the evening before, decided to buy a camelback. Peter did not.

Hot Belgians


Sunday's ride was the JEM trail to Hurricane Rim trail loop. Completely different from Gooseberry Mesa, this is a fun loop of dusty, desert singletrack. Swoopy, technical at times, fast at others, this is a great loop to do if you can't explore higher up in the hills. Unfortunately, by 11am, when we were nearing the top of the long singletrack climb, it was hotter than hot.

Desert rules


40 degrees, to be exact. Peter had drank his one small bottle, and the small bottle I brought for him, and was dipping into my and Gino's camelbacks. It was going to be a long day... The JEM trail ended with everybody (we were riding with the entire REI posse) feeling great, turned onto the Hurricane Rim trail and things got grim... Out of water for an hour in the hot hot desert, just about everybody bonked. Gino licked drops of water out of my resevoir and became one with the desert.

But the cars were not far away and we hydrated, jumped in the hotel pool, and headed back to Vegas. From there, the Belgians flew back and I continued on to San Diego.