The Wedge: West Side of the Good Water Rim Trail // ADVENTR.co

Halloween Weekend | Saturday & Sunday, October 30-31, 2021

This weekend Diane was able to get away from her schoolwork for the second time this month, so we decided to head on over to the San Rafael Swell for a little mountain biking on The Wedge. I’ve known about the Good Water Rim Trail for a long time and have always thought it might be fun to take my mountain bike over there to check it out, but I never got around to it before. However, now that I have a mountain bike that I actually enjoy riding and have been trying to plan a few more biking trips throughout the year, this sounded like the perfect time to finally go! We left home early on Saturday morning and made our way to The Wedge Recreation Area where we found an open campsite near the the Main Trailhead and got camp set up. After lunch we hopped on our bikes and started riding the West Side of the Good Water Rim Trail to The Wedge Overlook, which was around 8 miles long. We weren’t sure how rough and slow the trail was going to be, and since we haven’t ridden our bikes much lately we didn’t think it would be a good idea to try riding the entire loop today, which is about 15 miles long.

We set up camp in the late morning and then started our ride after lunch.

Following singletrack near the head of Good Water Canyon.

The canyon got deeper as we followed the trail along the rim. It was a beautiful day for a ride.

Of course, we stopped a number of times to get off the bikes and enjoy the views along the way.

Back on the Trail

Here’s a short video clip of Diane riding along the rim.

As we neared the mouth of Good Water Canyon we had a good view of the Little Grand Canyon.

The golden cottonwoods were looking nice around the bends of the San Rafael River below.

The Little Grand Canyon

There was a plaque for Lamar Guyman, the creator of the Good Water Rim Trail, at the West Trailhead where we stopped to rest on the edge of the canyon for a while.

River Curves

Diane was feeling a bit tired at this point, so she decided to ride the road back to camp while I was looking for a little more singletrack fun and views from the rim, so I followed the Good Water Rim Trail most of the way back. She made it back to camp in about 20 minutes and it took me a little over an hour.

I think that this is probably my favorite mountain bike trail that I have ridden so far. There are great views, it’s not very technical or ledgy and there is very little elevation gain or loss. It was a great easy and scenic ride, which is exactly what I am looking for! Diane and I are already making plans to come back and ride the East Side of the trail next year.

When I made it back to camp I had ridden over 15 miles, which I’m pretty sure is my longest mountain bike ride ever. We ate dinner and watched the light change before sunset.

Bikes at Sunset

Last Light from Camp

There were a lot of annoying little gnats out this evening which was a little surprising to me this late in the season, and they ended up chasing us into the tent sooner than we normally would have gone. I did stay out until it was pretty dark out in hopes of catching a glimpse of the Northern Lights, but there were just too many thin clouds over Cedar Mountain to the north this evening.

We woke up with sunrise on Sunday morning, but it was still too cloudy for there to be an actual sunrise. We packed up camp and headed out so we could hike to a nice pictograph panel before driving back home.

Leaving The Wedge Recreation Area on Sunday morning.