During our 7+ years of full time rv living and traveling we’ve passed through the Vegas area several times. There is really great mountain biking on the outskirts by Red Rock Canyon and we rode there a couple more times this past week.
Blue Diamond, originally called Cottonwood Springs, served as a stop on the Old Spanish Trail for traders traveling between Santa Fe, New Mexico and California in the mid-nineteenth century. Before that, we know the Paiute people lived in the area. In the early 1920s, the Blue Diamond Company arrived in the area and opened the gypsum mine thereby making it a company town. The mine shut down in 2005 and there are plans two develop the entire hilltop into around 7,000 houses. Who knows if that will ever go through. Vegas doesn’t exactly have a wealth of water.
Our first ride was on the Blue Diamond side which are more technical than the trails on the other side of the highway. There is a lot of rock out here whether it’s the smaller loose babyheads that jumble some trails, or the shear rock slabs the trails are etched into. The views towards the canyons are magnificent as you can see in the pictures below.
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