Where do they come up with trail names? Seriously, I want to be the guy that names new singletrack. On our last morning in St. George, we planned on meeting with Jon from Sabrosa around 1pm, giving us time to take on a few of the trails on the other side of the wash from Zen trail, namely what we found to be called the “three fingers of death.” Don’t worry, we survived. No one’s ghost-writing this. If they were, it’d probably be a bit better composed…

Anyway, we went out hoping to spend an hour or so on the trails and ended up racking up over three hours exploring the area. The Three Fingers are these mini alluvial fans that cascade down from the top of a fire road into the Green Valley. They are not deadly, but if you’re not comfortable doing a drop at the end of a downhill ridgeline, you could very well break yourself off. In the hour we spent doing laps, we saw a good number of people almost go full-on scorpion over the bars and into the red clay.

A small note: this gallery is on the small-ish size, which is why I left it for the weekend but if you think the content is waning from Utah, you’re in for a surprise!

After hucking ourselves down the Fingers, we meandered around through more downhill geologic formations. One of which was dubbed Acid Drop, but indeed wasn’t all that psychedelic. Eventually, we kinda all grouped at the bottom, wondering what was next on the agenda before agreeing to do the backcountry Stucki Springs and Bearclaw Poppy loop. At this point, the weight of my camera bag was starting to get to me and I was hungry for lunch, but alas, we probably weren’t going to come back to this area anytime soon, so I sucked it up and went along for the ride.

I don’t often say this, but each trail we rode in Utah compounded the ever-present mind-fuck. As a closet geologist and lover of natural formations and hues, I actually found myself taking less photos on this ride and just soaking it all in. The beauty of these short backcountry loops greatly outweighs the lack of any sort of technical obstacles or features.

Then we hit the bermed, speed descent and everyone’s faces were sore from smiling and shouting. We all agreed that it really couldn’t get any better than this and then it did…