BLOWHARD MOUNTAIN

Blowhard Mountain is on the south side of Brian Head and riders come from all over the region to traverse this special trail on two wheels. This is one of the coolest rides I’ve experienced anywhere. It’s got it all: climbing, technical downhills, spectacular views, fast single-track through aspen and fir forests, loose single-track along cliffs with dropoffs of 1,000 feet. The local shops and books recommend a 7.5 mile downhill ride down the side of Bloward Mountain (with a shuttle to pick you up at the bottom), but we found a far better way to do this ride as a 20-mile loop and no shuttle.

Malcolm, Jim Harlo and I started the day by driving from Brian Head to Woods Ranch on Highway 14. Then we took our bikes off the back of Malcolm’s truck and rode straight up the paved road (8% grade) for about nine miles with great views of the canyonlands of Zion National Park off to the right. After the nine-mile climb, we turned left on a dirt road, now heading toward the nearby summit of Blowhard Mountain (10,690 ft), where we fueled up on food and water (Malcolm got an upset stomach from some of the caffeine mints I gave him, probably because they contained too much mint and enough caffeine). Then we hopped on our bikes and zipped down a steep single track through the forest, and before we knew it (like within 10 minutes), we were riding along the cliffs with a 1,000 foot dropoff on the right. It’s a great place to get pictures at the edge of the cliffs, with Cedar Breaks National Monument across the canyon. (Since we still had some other cool trails to try out, we took special care not to ride too close to the edge.)

Finished with the pictures that will certainly impress bikers and terrify non-biking relatives, we headed down over a trail covered with loose limestone rocks and sharp turns, all of which required occasional dismounting over the next 20 minutes or so. But then the route took us through a forest on a sweet single track, then a double-track meadow, then eventually through a hollow that is probably the source of the name of my titanium bike (Moots Hollow), technically speaking, lower Moots Hollow—a thickly wooded single track along a river and below some cliffs. This is as good as it gets.

Within two hours since starting the treacherous part of that descent over the loose limestone rocks, we were heading back on Highway 14 zipping back up to the car with fantasies in our heads about the double espressos soon to be available at the Bump and Grind in metropolitan Brian Head. After two miles on the pavement of Highway 14, we were in Malcolm’s truck in Woods Ranch. My watch indicated that our dirt tour had taken four hours of the day and Malcolm’s GPS claimed we had climbed 3,500 vertical feet in the process of doing this downhill ride.

Ray