12/11 - Bootleg Canyon (XC), NV

Bootleg Canyon XC

This morning, being somewhat lazy, I got up, got hooked up, and pulled out of the Red Rock Canyon campground in search of new space.

In particular, I was looking for a space down at the Boulder Beach Campground on Lake Mead.

I wanted my next place to be close to Bootleg Canyon, mostly so that after I rode at Bootleg I would not need to drive back across Vegas to get to my temporary residence. In this I think I was clear thinking, while as it costs more to use the campground (you need to pay 10/night for camping plus 5/5-days for area access) it is so much more completely convenient. Boulder Beach campground is actually really nice I think. The facilities are decent, there are real trees out here, and the latter is a huge boon at the moment because they break up the wind and keep it from feeling quite as cold outside. Will make for better resting, I think.

And Boulder City is such a cute little thing, not the sprawling example of Progress that Las Vegas is.

After I got camp setup, I went and checked in with All Mountain Cyclery and talked to them (Joey I believe, but I could have the name wrong, sorry) for info on Bootleg Canyon and how to get up the hill to it.

HOW TO GET TO BOOTLEG CANYON FOR THE STUPID (like me)

- Enter Boulder City on Hwy 93 from the west, travelling east

- At the stoplight with intersection of Buchanan Blvd and Hwy 93, turn left and follow Hwy 93 (as if going towards Lake Mead National Recreation Area).

- Make the 1st Left onto Canyon Road

- Continue straight on Canyon Road through the intersection with Industrial Road.

- When the pavement ends, basically continue straight up the hill on the dirt "road." Keep the fenced in area on your left. You will shortly see the restroom facilities and pavillion with picnic table and grill.

Once I found the parking area, I just screwed around a bit and explored. Joey had told me there were showers at the trailhead (!) and it turns out he was not in fact lying. The facilities are awefully decent for a free-to-use trail network, so let's all play nice and do our part to keep them nice and tidy and easy to maintain.

I did my part against this by adding yet another sticker to the sticker collection out there. Nothing obtrusive, just a little "home colors" to share.

I then got my act together and headed up the hill, and I mean up.

I started out by riding up Girl Scout, conencting the road to the top (I'm not sure why I chose to do that rather than climb up on Boy Scout, but we all have irrational moments), dropping in and going down on Boy Scout, contuing along West Leg to Mother, then IMBA in both directions, to POW and then Par None and back to the start.

On the face of it, this was a pretty short ride in distance (just shy of 10m), and pretty long in time for the distance (like 2:30 or so), but not knowing the trail and checking now and then on the map to see where I was this was just about right.

I did not sample any Black trails today. Ptui.

Where the trails out of Blue Diamond were all pretty much very buff singletrack, the trails I've sampled here at Bootleg are not really that buff. I don't think they should be, I think they're great just the way they are.

Don't get me wrong, these are not your "new trails that need riding in" - these trails have had an amazing amount of work done to them, building up areas with stone retaining walls and really significant cutting of the hillside to make the singletrack bench.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking the XC trails out here are that similar to the trails out of Blue Diamond / Cottonwood.

Where the former is packed dirt, some sand; the latter are hard dirt with scrabble and some varying sized rocks overlayed. Irregularly but frequently punchtated with rock moves of varying types and degrees of difficulty, both descending and ascending. Nothing that I saw today on the blue/green trails that I rode is doable only in one direction - save one move on Mother that I think would take a True Stud to pull off as a climb. I'm sure those studs are out there, I just don't pretend to be one. The BC trails do an wesome job of contour following in many areas, lots of grade reversals, it's very easy to maintain speed control.

If you want to. Much of these trails are also exceedingly well laid out to just cruise like your hair is on fire.

What is challenging even on the blue/green trails I rode is the unannounced rock-moves that happen here and there, the surprise features in turns around the hillside (e.g. blind turns with TTFs), and how the lighting and shadowing conspire to rob my eyes of visual cues.

There were a number of times when at the speed I was entering a section (usually a dip) I could not quite make out the shape of the exit terrain (I think because my sun glasses were too dark, but angle of the sun could be playing into it) and just had to Use The Force and roll through.

That would be the combined force of Titus, Marzocchi, Kenda, and Faith, if you get my drift.

Speaking of drift, don't do too much of that around here. On the outside turns drifting off the trail (which truly is narrow singletrack that anyone from Fruita would be happy with) could lead to Pain and Sadness. In some areas you'd just get dirty. In other areas there will be a bigger check to cash.

Once done my ride it was time to scope out the reality of the shower. Which, while open-air as it is, turned out to be a quite nice hot shower. It took a bit of running the water to get the hot stuff flowing, but once it did it was all there. For this cheapskate what is camping in faciklity-minus area, a free hot shower was a godsend. I hate sleeping "cruddy."

Ride Info: 9.4 miles, 1870ft of climbing, 2:50 elapsed time.

The GPS tracklog is available in both GPS Exchange and Google Earth KML formats.

These tracklogs have two segments, one is the trail ride, the other is most-of the dirt road extension of Canyon Rd from the pavement up the hill a bit.

The New Camp on Lake Mead