Las Vegas Nevada 2004
I never thought that within 20 minutes of the Vegas strip that there would be singletrack. But when you run out of money you need to find cheaper ways to spend time in Vegas and what better way than mountain biking! After downloading some maps of the trails around Vegas we headed there for a short vacation over Memorial Day weekend.
We stayed overnight in Primm and then headed straight for the trails the next morning. Suprisingly, there weren’t many riders on the trails for a holiday Saturday afternoon. Cottonwood Loop is a 14 mile loop that is listed as a beginner to intermediate. We parked at the first parking area and rode up the gravel rode to the second parking area and entered into the single track. We rode this course clockwise. Unfortunately, this direction gave us a gradual climb for many miles (which would have been a great downhill going the other way).
You can barely see the city of Vegas in the background
The trail was mostly packed singletrack with easy slopes during the climbs. The most technical portion was a series of rocky switchbacks descending from the red rocks. Other than that, the trail was just smooth riding. We didn’t see any wild horses, burros, snakes or scorpions. We completed the loop in around three hours and headed towards the hotel.
Open desert riding
Shanda on the singletrack
I wish I could write more and say we rode Bootleg or Red Rocks the next day, but spent most of the next day playing Hold’em at Luxor.
