Woke to yet another sunny day, and packed up all my gear. Washing dries very quickly in this climate which is handy as I had washed all my cycle gear the night before, Today I was going to ride at trails over at Cotton Wood Valley, then drive over to St George.

View from Hotel Window

The Hampton Inn had been a good place to stay with a big room and comfortable King bed and large bathroom. The Hotel room and been very quiet and I'd had a good nights sleep. The only down side to Hotel was all the static shocks you got after walking through the Hotels Corridors.

Late Night Beginner Singletrack (36MB)

From the side of the road where I parked I crossed the highway heading north I went through a new but closed car park and started riding down the Late Night Beginner Trail. The Trail was good fun with fast singletrack heading generally down.

I turned right onto the Inner Loop trail which was smooth and fairly fast and still heading downwards

Cottonwood Loop Trail (6MB)

The trail continued heading up towards the Bluffs , and then at the junction with the Inner loop trail it turned North, and got wider and quite sandy, and headed down, before leveling out and heading east towards Blue Diamond.

Riding the Landmine Loop Trail

Riding Landmine Loop Trail towards Blue Diamond

Eventually the trail dropped out at the town of Blue Diamond, I went to McGhies Bike Outpost and bought my self the Green Trails Map of the area so I would know how to get back, as so far I had been playing it by ear.

From Blue Diamond I Headed along the Landmine Loop trail, then took a left turn and rode up the Hurl. The Ride up was fairly tough as it was very hot, and the trail climbed quite steeply on loosely packed rock.

View of Las Vegas

Once the initially big climb was over the trail continued to climb slowly along a ridge, at one point you could see Las Vegas off in the distance, But the views of the Sandstone Bluffs were much better.

As the trail was marked as a back diamond I was expecting it to be tough going down but it just had a few technical spots to navigate on the way down.

Heading down the Hurl

Riding down the Hurl Singletrack

Mules in the distance

Riding along unnamed Trail towards Inner Loop

The trail joined up with the Inner Loop trail , and I rode along this and then I turned onto a dirt road which headed West towards the Sandstone bluffs.

Start of Black Velvet Trail

Riding Black Velvet Trail

At the end of the Black Velvet trail I joined the Late night trail which headed back towards the SUV.

Back at the SUV I packed up my gear, and eat some for food before setting off for St George in Utah.

I now drove back down the 160 and got onto the interstate heading North to Utah, the traffic got a bit heavy as it passed through the center of Las Vegas, but then the Interstate to St George was clear.

I arrived at St George and checked into my Hotel the new La Quinta Inn, I had a large king suite on the top floor of the hotel at the back, the room was probably the best Hotel room I'd stopped at. After unpacking I decided to do another bike ride so I headed over to the Anasazi Trail as I knew this was a short ride.

Looking down at SUV from Anasazi Trail

I arrived at the car park while the sun was going down, I made sure I had my light and headed up the trail, which climbed up slick rock.

The highlight of this ride was all the amazing rock art on the rocks. I left my bike on the trail at the top of the cliff and clambered around the rocks looking for the rock art , and there was loads of it.

Anasazi Trail

Anasazi Trail by Night

I had to stop looking for Rock art as the sun went down, and headed back to my car with a small head torch to light my way, which made for an interesting ride. When I got back to my SUV there was an angry women who demanded I gave her my drivers license as I shouldn't be there after the sun went down, she was also saying she was going to call the cop's. I managed to calm her down when I explained I was from England and did not know you were not supposed to be here at night. I then headed back to my Hotel stopping on the way at a Panda Express where I bought my dinner. After I'd had my dinner I had a swim and used the hot tub before going on line and ordering up some stuff from Amazon before crashing out for the night