For our third day of riding in Caliente, NV we headed to Barnes Canyon to ride the network. For this small town, they sure are doing a fantastic job with mountain biking trails. We rode a loop at Barnes Canyon of 14 miles with 1478′ of climbing.
From the giant graded parking lot complete with fire pits, grills, and shade structures, we rode up Mongoose Trail. This thoughtfully laid out singletrack climbs beautifully back up onto the mesa through a series of twisty switchbacks and turns carved into the hillside. This is beginner friendly to warm you up. From here we circled back down via a more technical trail that has a few treacherous rock features. Loop one done, we climbed all the way around the back past Teepee Rocks (the pictures below will be obvious). What a gorgeous and unexpected area!!!! All the way back up on the top of the mesa we rode Rocky Tops Trail which was my favorite, before descending back to the start. All the singletrack is pretty narrow with some loose sidehill exposure in areas so be careful.
I HIGHLY recommend checking this area out for riding or hiking. Oh, and more trails are on the way. Grant funding is key to all of their projects and I hope they get more.
Caliente
Caliente, NV is an historic train town and we stopped by the old train depot to look around after our ride. The boxcar museum was closed but apparently one of the board members was passing by and saw us peeking through the window. Small town that it is, he came over and unlocked it especially for us and then gave us a tour. The area was first settled (after Native Americans of course), by two slaves fleeing Arkansas in the 1860’s. After that it became a ranching town and then came the railroad. Caliente lies between Salt Lake City and San Francisco and the race was on by rival groups to build tracks through the canyon. It was settled by a shotgun. Caliente was a major division point on the railroad line until diesel locomotives replaced steam engines and the division point was moved to Vegas.
Today the town boasts all these trails, a mtb skills park and pump track, motorcycle trails, and Kershaw Ryan State Park. If you’re passing through, it’s worth staying and exploring.
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