Klondike Bluffs Mountain Bike Trail Review

In the wake of the extremely large shadows that both the Porcupine Rim Trail, Poison Spider, and the Slick Rock Trail (of course), the Klondike Bluffs Trail is often missed on a Moab trip. This is unfortunate, I have been going to Moab for 4 or 5 years now and this is honestly one of my favorite trails that I have ever ridden. What I think is the coolest thing about this trail is that about anyone can ride it. You do have to be in shape, it is a pretty long climb, but it is not super technical and scary for someone who is new to biking. Riding on slick rock (the substance not the trail) is one of the most interesting things I have ever done on a bike. When you climb it almost feels like asphalt, your tires grip and don’t spin out. What is nice is you can do a climb with much less energy than climbing on dirt. Klondike Bluffs I would say is at least 90% slick rock.

How to get to Klondike Bluffs is head north out of Moab, pass Arches National Park and there will be a sign on the east side of the highway about 15 miles out of town. There is a parking lot right there, but do yourself a favor and drive in on the dirt road. This road is not fun, it is mostly gravel and sand. Eventually you will come to another parking lot, this is the spot to park. The trail head is right there you can’t miss it. There are actually two trail shortly after the start, look for the higher one that is the one you want to take, you will bypass a HUGE sand trap by doing so. Once the trails merge there will be a small sand trap that you can navigate through. One of the best parts of the ride is to sit there and watch people ride through the sand and eat it. I was following my wife and she didn’t carry her momentum into the sand well, and she was still getting used to the clipless pedals, when she hit the sand it stopped her flat, paused her straight up, then just fell straight over on her side. I will probably be sleeping on the couch for the next two weeks for this, but once I realized she was okay, I laughed so hard that I almost did the same thing. So be sure to stop by the sand trap to get a few laughs. 

Immediately after the sand trap you will see a sign for Baby Steps Loop. Do not be fooled by its cute name, that trail is brutal, and you most defiantly do not want to climb up it, more on that one later. So continue up the trail and you will come to some fun dirt/rock sections that are bit technical, but really fun to maneuver over. Once you pass that section you have about a 3-3.5 mile straight climb up slick rock. One time on this trail we passed a 4-generation biking family. The grandma had to be at least 70, then I believe it was her son and his wife, their adult child, with their six year old. So don’t be a wuss, I saw a seventy-year-old woman on this trail, what was embarrassing is she had a nicer bike than me at the time (she had a pretty nice Trek Fuel if I remember correctly). If you are more of an advanced rider and in good shape this is an awesome slick rock play ground. You don’t have a narrow trail to follow; there are a lot of obstacles right off the beaten path to play on. So have fun with it and create your own line, it is really easy to see where you are going and to see when you need to get back on the trail, but for sure more than one road leads to Rome on this section.

Once you get up on top of the slick rock portion of the trail there is a double track dirt trail that is mellow, which is a welcome change because the slick rock climb is pretty long, and in some cases steep, your lungs will be due for a rest. Continue on the dirt trail until you come to a brutal looking climb. This is a great place to stop and rest for your party to re-group there are some trees even to sit in the shade. Once the party is rallied and rested if you feel man enough you can attempt the brutal climb up for the last 100 yards or so. I pride myself on being manly, but I will be the first to admit that I am not that manly, so I leave my bike the in shade of the tree and hike up the last 100 yards for the real treat of the trail. After the last 100 yards you cross over into Arches National Park. Bikes are not allowed into the park so if you are more manly than me you park your ride there at the gate. If you have never been Mars then you know exactly what Arches National Park looks like. Seriously it is the strangest looking place on the planet, but that strangeness is what made it a national park. Honestly going to Arches National Park is something that MUST be on everyone’s bucket list, words and photos cannot describe the beauty of the place. Arches’ has some of the strangest landscapes that are on the face of the Earth. There are no arches in this spot, however it is a really remote part of the park that not many people will ever see and defiantly unique. It is worth every minute of the ride to get up there.

Typically Klondike Bluffs is ridden as an out-n-back. Which is the way I recommend doing it. You can seriously bomb down the slick rock portion faster than most steep descents on a bike. Again you can also pick your own line to make it as technical as you wish. Also if you ride slower you can see some dinosaur foot prints that are in the slick rock portion of the trail. I have never ridden slow enough to find them, but my buddy had a flat coming down and he spotted a few.

However you can take an alternate route back, this is the Baby Steps Loop. On your way back to the slick rock portion you will see a sign that says Baby Steps Loop and you take that. Baby Steps has some steep, gnarly, technical descents. These are super cool, but in order to get to these you have to ride through tons of gravel and sand. Literally miles of it, so unless you are Super Man or you get to Moab after a rainstorm Baby Steps is so hard. It adds probably 6-7 miles to the ride. Another bad thing about Baby Steps, is I found it really hard to navigate, some sections of the trail where easy, and others I was wondering if I was riding in the right direction. When I ran out of water and I couldn’t tell where the end was going to be I started having hallucinations that I was going to be buzzard food. Baby Steps was not an enjoyable ride for most of it. So stick to the Klondike Bluffs portion of the trail and have a great time.

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