I did this trip in March 2025. I will admit that I cheated a bit on this one since it was not self-supported as all of my other trips have been. My good friend Cameron had arranged the trip with a bunch of my best friends, so there was no way I could not go! We had our families going too and the support of a jeep, but even though it wasn’t the way I usually do it, it was still great fun!
We did the trip over 3 days from March 16-18 with great weather. We did have a rain storm on the last night, it didn’t give us any trouble in the canyon but after we climbed out of the canyon and we thought we where out of harms way, it turned out that the last bit of dirt road had turned in to complete peanut butter mud. So, I actually ended up snapping my derailleur clean off in the last 10k or so. So I guess it was not the worst trip to have some support on!
We stayed at the Gooseberry and Hardscrabble campgrounds which were both great. I did the ride on my steel gravel bike with 650b 47mm tires, which worked out totally fine however, not ideal. I guess the ideal bike would be a bit wider tire and maybe front suspension. The trail is not technical at all, it is all a 4×4 road so I’d probably give it a 5/10 in technicality.
I have some great memories from the trip since my family and a bunch of my best friends were there. Below are the pictures and my stats from strava. I thought 3 days was the perfect amount of time. There is so much to see so I was glad that I wasn’t in a hurry. Water can be an issue, so if you are doing it self-supported there’s an argument for doing it over two days I guess. The trip is very well described on bikepacking.com.
Screenshot of the stats:
Strava links to: Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3.
Through Mountains 