Blue Diamond Mountain Bike Trails

Dead Horse Loop

Just west of Las Vegas lies the Late Night Trailhead where we spent a couple days riding fun singletrack. With sunny skies and temps in the 60’s we lathered up with sunscreen and hit the singletrack. The loop we did the first day climbed gradually through Badger Pass with a detour onto Techno trail which was a fun little rocky trail, then up a trail called 3 Mile Smile. From there, we continued on Dead Horse Loop back to the parking lot. Dead Horse had a bunch of fun little steep rocky sections and a series of switchbacks called Satan’s Escalator. We saw a couple other people, but mostly it was just the two of us on fun singletrack.

Landmine Loop

Day 2 we stayed on the trails to the north of the highway and I LOVED these. We did some challenging chunky rock climbs up and and around plenty of cacti on Latenight and Landmine Trails. This is what I love, the line picking, the decision making, the skill stuff. After riding through the little town of Blue Diamond we detoured onto The Hurl. HAHA, it starts as a technical climb that was definitely challenging with a nice payoff when you get to the top. The descent off the backside has plenty of rideable rock sections, some switchbacks, and lots of flow.

More about Blue Diamond. It was a watering hole and campsite on the Old Spanish Trail back in the mid 1800’s. Now it’s a funky little place with a population of maybe 300 people. There is a mixture of charming older houses and then some new fancy looking modern houses. Apparently there is a very contentious plan to build 5,000 homes on Blue Diamond Hill which is an historic gypsum mine just east of the town.