Gooseberry Mesa

We visited Gooseberry Mesa for a couple days after the St. George Triathlon to put in some fun rides. Gooseberry Mesa sits southwest of Zion National Park and from there you can see the ominous Zion mountains. This place had lots of amazing riding for different levels, beginner, intermediate, and expert and was somewhat well marked with green, blue, and black diamond signs for their respective difficulty. We took lots of pictures to show the scenery and how fun this place is!

The windmill at the head of the windmill trail that is part of the trail network of Gooseberry Mesa.

The cool thing about the windmill trail is that it edges alongside the cliff edge of the mesa so you get a vast view of everything below.

The cliff wall behind dad and me goes all the way around the mesa for a long way.

By the way, we're at about 5000 feet elevation.

One of the narrow turns on the cliff edge with rocks to hop over to keep it tricky!

Incidentally, however pretty these plants are my dad and I have had to pull out their needles out of ourselves at different occasions. I suggest you view them when standing still, and not on a moving bike.

The Bowls and Ledges trail is a black diamond ranked trail with great obstacle course riding!

The famous slickrock. I have never ridden anything like it before because there isn't any in Alaska. The mesa is built of this rock and most of it is covered in sand and shrubs but there are some bare areas that allow you to ride and climb at angles that are impossible to even try on any other kind of terrain.

More great technical mountain bike handling practice. This is why I don't ride road bikes more than I need to!

There is not much that I can say, but hopefully the pictures were able to show what I could not. Gooseberry is a real gem, and when I can, I'll be back!