Trip Summary Trip Dates: May 31 - Jun 06 Start - End Locations: St. George, UT - St. George, UT Days: 7   Rest Days: 0   Level of Support: Event Miles: 279 Average Miles Per Day: 46 Surface: Road Riders: 75 Type: Supported   Meals: Catered meals Accommodations: Camping Physical Difficulty: Intermediate   Elevation: Elevation Alert Airport: Las Vegas, NV Cost: $949 Booking Status: Filling Up

Ah, spring in the desert. Join us on this fully supported spin through the incomparable national parks and monuments of southwest Utah, and you may find yourself turning a pre-summer junket to the kaleidoscopic canyon country into an annual tradition.

Right off the bat we’ll plunge into the ethereal shapes, shades, and red-rock walls of Zion National Park. First designated Mukuntuweap National Monument in 1909, the park was expanded and renamed Zion National Park ten years later. Long before that, however, these protective canyons served as a harbor for a long parade of human visitors and residents. Arriving first, approximately 12,000 years ago, were the big-game hunting Paleoindians, who pursued large mammals like mammoths and camels in what was a substantially different climate than today’s. Later, around one thousand to two thousand years ago, the Virgin Anasazi found the area to provide the ingredients necessary for primitive agriculture: namely, plentiful river water, flat ground, and an adequately long growing season. Finally, the Paiute Indians persevered in the area into historic times.

As you reflect on your ancient predecessors, you can enjoy the luxury of cycling into the heart of this national treasure via bike path and car-free road. Come evening, there'll be time for a chilly dip in the river before you enjoy dinner as the sun slips behind the canyon walls.

Even before you’ve had time to fully grasp the wonders you witnessed in Zion, you’ll be pedaling amidst the ghostly hoodoos carved out of the Paunsaugunt Plateau sediments of Bryce Canyon National Park. This unique park features an elevation difference of more than 2,000 feet between its high and low points; consequently, it encompasses a range of climatic zones, including spruce/fir forest at the highest elevations, ponderosa pine forest at the middle altitudes, and pinon/juniper forest at the lower elevations.

After Bryce Canyon, we’ll put our tires to the five-mile-long bike path running through magnificent Red Canyon, from the Thunder Mountain Trailhead to Coyote Hollow Road. Soon after that we’ll enter Cedar Breaks National Monument, where we’ll reach the literal high point of our adventure at 10,200 feet above sea level (nearly a mile and a half higher than where we started in St. George). From there, we can look down two thousand feet and out some three miles, across the monument’s cavernous, multi-hued reaches. Hundreds of centuries of alternating sedimentation and erosion, with a touch of uplift thrown into geologic jumble, have fashioned this implausible mega-amphitheater sitting at the top of the Colorado Plateau.

Each evening, after the brilliant sun has bowed below the horizon and the evening chill has set in, we’ll hug the campfire for warmth and camaraderie. And before zipping your tent shut for the night, you’ll want to have a look overhead: The stars and planets seem to shine bigger and brighter in the Utah canyon country sky than almost anywhere else.

For more detailed information, see Supported Event logistics.

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