Southwestern Burnup Tour - Sierra Nevada, Buckskin Gulch, and Zion - September 2011

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Cycling the J.E.M. Trail

Mountain biking desert singletrack on the J.E.M. Trail Thursday, September 29

After a well-earned rest (due to the previous day's hectic schedule), we arose and had a classic breakfast at the rustic little restaurant behind The Prospector Inn. We had two days' worth of 'outdoorsy' stuff on our to-do list. That list included some mountain biking and some sort of more technical slot-canyoning.

Prospector's Tractor

I'd planned to do both of those things in the southwestern corner of Utah, in and around Zion National Park. We were leaning towards doing the "Subway" route in Zion for the technical canyon outing, and Gooseberry Mesa for the mountain biking. Time was tight, though. We had a roughly three-hour drive to get us to Springdale, near Zion, meaning we really only had the afternoon with which to work. Since the Subway route takes most of a day, that meant that today would be best spent doing the mountain biking.

courtesy JInnes

Caps Lined Up

We set off from Escalante at a sunny 8:30am, headed west. It was, as always, a superbly scenic drive along the very pretty scenic highways of Southern Utah: past the southern tip of the Aquarius Plateau, skirting the northern edges of Bryce Canyon NP, through Red Canyon, and down to the "back" entrance of Zion National Park. Compared to the lands and places we had been to over the last few days, Zion was busy - really busy, crawling with a mass of humanity. Zion is definitely beautiful, but its main canyon is not a place to go if you value solitude.

courtesy AHyndman

Kane County Manisheriff

Back Entrance to Zion

courtesy AHyndman

Checkerboard Mesa

Explaining Zion

Zion's big tunnel

Arn and Gosia thoroughly enjoyed the scenic back-route on Utah 9 into Zion, past Checkerboard Mesa, through domes of slickrock, through the 1930s-era Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel, and down into Zion Canyon itself. Presently we arrived in the scenic and hip little town of Springdale, on the western border of the park. We checked into a motel for the night, had some tasty sandwiches at the Zion Park Gift & Deli, then set about to organizing our mountain bike outing.

courtesy AHyndman

Zion's big tunnel

Driving in Zion

Scenic UT9 in Zion NP

Right across from our motel was a fairly prominent cycle rental place -- Zion Cycles. I had done a little research on the 'net before the trip, and they seemed like a decent enough place from which to rent our bicycles. We went in and talked to a few of the staff. They quickly sized-up our requirements, not just regarding the bikes themselves, but what we could hope to do with the remaining time during the day. We were pushing it, time wise - it was already after 1pm, and we still had yet to be fitted, load the bikes into the car, drive to a trailhead, and start cycling. And then finish in time to return the bikes before the place closed.

courtesy AHyndman

Sandwiches at the Deli

Anyway, as I said, the staff very quickly and appropriately gave us recommendations for what to do. I had originally been thinking of Gooseberry Mesa -- one of the premiere mountain biking areas in Southern Utah -- but we were told that timewise, we'd be better off doing something else: another nearby desert singletrack trail, known as the J.E.M. trail.

Arriving at J.E.M. TH

The J.E.M. trail was closer, involved less off-pavement driving, and was likely to take us less time. I'd already heard about (and read about) the J.E.M. trail, and what I'd heard about it was good. I was therefore already positively disposed to the idea of trying that trail out. We decided to go with the J.E.M. trail (rather than going to Gooseberry Mesa).

After the folks at the cycle shop gave us properly sized and set-up bikes based on our height and weight, we carefully loaded all four bikes into the back of our rental vehicle. We crammed the tiny space remaining in the back with Jenn and Gosia, then wasted no time in heading off towards near end (the lower end) of the J.E.M. trail.

courtesy JInnes

Assembling Bikes

The J.E.M. trail is named after the initial letters of the three people who initially blazed this trail. The trail is part of the Hurricane Cliffs Trail network, and it offers a superb and not all that hard desert singletrack mountain biking experience. The trail is a point-to-point affair: it more or less starts on one highway and finishes near a different highway. The trail is almost entirely downhill going one way, and almost entirely uphill going the other way. Our starting trailhead was the lower one, meaning that we would be cycling uphill for the first part of our journey, then turning around and cycling back down to the parking lot.

Attaching Wheels

Ready to Rumble

Logo Closeup

We weren't sure how far we would get along the trail, or even if we would all stay together, but given the open nature of the route, and since we were doing the route as a there-and-back, there was little danger of anyone getting lost.

There was no one else at the trailhead when we arrived. Perhaps this was because it was quite warm out for a late September day, around 35 degrees Celcius.

courtesy AHyndman

Testing, testing...

Setting out on the J.E.M. Trail

Climbing on the J.E.M. Trail

courtesy JInnes

Arn and Gosia

Cliffside Track

Jenn and Gosia

After assembling the bikes and doing a few test loops around the parking lot, we set off. The trail was nicely smooth and well-defined, and started out skirting the edge of the cliffs above the Virgin River, whose muddy waters we could see flowing west about 100 feet below us. The JEM trail continued to contour along the edge of the cliff, and then away from the river along the edge of a dry (but still deep and cliff-walled) side canyon. In places, the trail was pretty close to the edge of the cliffs, requiring a little bit of nerve.

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