Blue Diamond in Vegas

Nichol and I started out 2017 with a bike ride out on the Blue Diamond trail system just outside of Las Vegas.

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It had rained a bit the previous two days which I am pretty such set this place up for near-perfect trail conditions.  It was a little brisk out (by us San Diego weather weenie standards) but long sleeves or a second layer fixed that.

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We basically followed this route from MTBProject with a couple of slight variations.  Another good site for trail info out here is Trailforks.  Of course chit-chatting with the folks at McGhies Bike shop where this loop starts from it always a good call. (16 Cottonwood, #B, Blue Diamond, NV 89004)

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The counterclockwise loop we did started out from town and connected up with the Landmine Loop trail up and over a saddle where we then turn mostly westward.  This was some quality cross-county desert cruising action.

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From Landmine we turned on Southcut and then picked up the Lawnmower Saddle trail where we did a bit of climbing before dropping down to connect up with the Rubber Ducky trail.

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After Rubber Ducky we were had a nice long stretch of barely needing to pedal buff goodness.

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We eventually connected back up with the Landmine Loop trail where the trail got a little more rockier for a while before we got back into mostly buff trails.

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We did have some clouds shadow things up a bit off and on but for the most part we beautiful blue skies with big puffy clouds for the bulk of the ride.

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If you look closely you can see some board members of the Pacific Crest Trail ASSociation out tromping around off trail.

We closed off the loop with a fairly mild bit of climbing with a couple of gullies to navigate.   This was a nice loop and I’m looking forward to getting back out here and exploring the rest of the trail network that is out in this area.  The only other riding I have done around Las Vegas has been The Cowboys Trails just up the road a bit from Blue Diamond.   At some point I’m going to check out Bootleg Canyon as well.