Off-road Trails in Southern Nevada

 

I ride electric mountain bikes and a dual sport motorcycle in southern Nevada. Luckily, over 85% of Nevada is public lands, and there is lots of off road riding available for both motorized and non-motorized machines. I wanted to create this blog post to make others aware of some great resources to find all these available trails.  While many of these resources claim to have maps for both, coverage of motorized versus non motorized varies quite a bit within each of the apps/websites. Some have free access levels and others support both subscriptions free access levels.  I will say that none of these mapping tools has complete coverage.  Most are less than half the actual trails in most areas.  

I also use an old smartphone for navigation for both mountain biking and motorcycling. It is very important to keep your eyes on the trails to avoid an accident, like this one: https://jimroal.blogspot.com/2024/02/oops.html .  Stop to view the navigation.

Apps & Websites

Trailforks - This is my go to app for Electric Mountain biking, and any mountain biking. While it also supports motorized off road trails, it is not particularly good at that. For mountain biking, it is great because crowdsourced trails are available. I have found the coverage in my area to be better than any other apps I have found for mountain biking. It supports offline maps for navigation when out of cellular range.  Part of Outside+. Here is my Trailforks profile.

GAIA - This is a pretty decent app in general for finding trails. I have used it for both motorcycling and electric mountain biking, but I tend to find other apps a bit better and so it is not my go to app.  GAIA is more of a mapping utility and navigation tool than a way to find existing trails. It supports offline maps for navigation when out of cellular range. It is one of the few that support off-road turn-by-turn navigation.  Part of Outside+. Here is my Gaia profile.

OnX - There are several variants of OnX. I use the off road version. It seems to be the best in my area for motorcycling. It is a subscription only app and website and has no access without a subscription. It supports offline maps for navigation when out of cellular range.  

AllTrails - The AllTrails app and website claim to support all kinds of off road trails and activities. It does but I have found the coverage to be not as good as trail forks for biking or for onX for motorcycling, at least in my area. It supports offline maps for navigation when out of cellular range.  

Kamoot - Supports hiking and biking.

Strava - This is more of a social networking app for bicyclers, but you can look up other people's ride segments and find some routes this way.

Garmin Explore - Garmin explore is an application used with many Garmin products. Garmin has other similar apps to Garmin Explore as well, depending on the product that you are using. It supports offline maps, navigation, and integration with several Garmin products such as InReach satellite messenger.  

Google Maps - Google Maps actually has features for navigating off-road too.  Well, somewhat anyway.  It has biking and walking modes that include trails.  While it is not a main feature it can work surprisingly well at times.  Often you will need to put it in biking or walking mode and also add some stops along the way to enforce your desired route.  Here is an example taking a Jeep trail over Wheeler Pass.

Google Earth - Google Earth has some great tools for searching the Earth for all kinds of detail. It also includes some great measurement tools that will show you the elevation profile. Another great feature is tilting the map to see a perspective from ground level or anywhere in between.  You can also import GPS data from Garmin Connect and other trip trackers. The satellite imagery is good enough to spot many trails that may not yet be mapped.  

RideWithGPS - created as a bicycle route planner it is generally a pretty good route planner.  

Local and national government sites

Each local area likely has its own resources for specific parks and places where there are trails. things like the U. S Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management cover many parks across the United States. Below are just a few that I use around Southern Nevada.

US Forest Service mapping 

Bureau of Land Management and BLM maps landing page

USGS mapping store

Off-Road Nevada

Nevada Trail Finder

Related Resources

Backcountry Discovery Routes (BDR). Back country discovery routes are specific routes that have been created by the BDR community. They connect multiple trails together to make a long route, generally through part of or an entire state.

Once you find places to ride on the map, the next thing you wonder is how challenging and fun will it be. I generally search the trail name in YouTube where many people have posted some great videos of their rides/drives so you can actually ride the trail before you get there.  I contribute many ride segments on my YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@jimroal .

Oops - I crashed

 I had a fun motorcycle ride plan mapped out.  We would start at Apex (a.k.a. Nellis Dunes) and ride across to the Old Spanish Trail which connects to Bitter Springs.  Basically the route in purple on the map below. A big loop that returns to Apex.

OnX link to North half of planned route: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01HNNZ4MSD8Z9VKDXGFW01MHRP  and South half: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01HNNZ6R78S90W9A76WT85QXR3 . 

The weather was perfect.  We got to Apex which is a large open riding area of mostly sand dunes.  We needed to get across Apex to start on the Old Spanish Trail (blue arrow on map below).  We started at the left of the map below.

Apex is a web of trails and dunes so not so clear to navigate through.  Since we were on off-road focused motorcycles, the obvious route was as straight as we could go, sort of.  The blue trace below is from my Garmin Messenger which sends updates every 10min. We made it to somewhere in that red circle below.

Here is a closer satellite look below.  The crash happened somewhere in this area, likely that dune drop just below the 2 blue dots.  You can see the semicircle where the dune drops off. That will have a sharp edge and drop where the sand blows over the dune. Of course, these dunes shift all the time so the image below my not represent what it was like when I crashed.

Here is a higher resolution map of the area: https://maps.clarkcountynv.gov/ow/?@844538,26805354,8 

In hindsight, this is the route we should have taken (below)

That is where things took a bad turn, or drop.  I was riding with a friend Jeff who explained that I rode off the sharp edge of a dune which was about an 8ft drop.  I landed in the riding position still but the bike and I had fallen over on the left side.  It appears I fell hard on my left shoulder and head.  Still in the riding position, my left leg was under the bike now.  Jeff got down to where I landed and pulled me out from under the bike. I was a bit out of it but conscious by then.  He said I complained of shoulder pain and wanted to just rest for a few minutes.  Almost 30 minutes later I was ready to get going again. When we got back up I insisted we needed to just find the easiest route back home.  After some basic checks of my state, we headed home. At this point we were still out in the dunes and the best route back was not clear.  At one point we were on top of a dune with a fairly steep drop.  Jeff told me to wait there while he finds a better route down.  However, I just rode down it anyway.  He was a bit surprised I did that given my shoulder pain. At another point Jeff had me turn off my bike while he searched for the best route out.  When he returned and we were ready to go again, I could not start my bike.  I kept trying but the kill switch was still off.  At this point he began to worry that I may not be thinking straight.  He could not see how bad my shoulder was and had no idea I had a concussion either.  Before we got on the highway, Jeff asked some questions and took a closer look to access my state.  I was able to answer all the questions fine so we headed home.  

I do not remember much past pulling off Rt 604 where we started off-road. The next memory I have is riding home passing the I215/I95 interchange.  This would be about an hour I have no memory of now, including the entire accident.  

We got home and removed my riding gear.  At that point Jeff finally got a better look at my shoulder.  I do remember this.  The look on his face when he saw my shoulder was not good.  It's that kind of look you never want anyone to have when they are looking at you.  It was that "of man that looks really bad" look.  Kelly got home shortly after and took me to the hospital.  They found several cracked ribs, a concussion, and a broken Clavicle bone (a.k.a. collar bone).  

A couple weeks later I had surgery to repair my clavicle (collar bone). It took twice as long as they had planned since the bone was in 3 pieces.  Now I have some new hardware holding that bone together, as well as a scar from my neck to my shoulder.  

Its a good thing that I had all my protective gear on that day. I had a helmet, chest protector, motocross boots, proper riding pants, knee pads, and my jacket, everything. Dunes can be very deceiving, and it is easy to miss these deep drop offs. However, I have ridden dunes often, and I know this. I really wish I could remember the accident. Looking back to what I do remember, I know we were trying to navigate across the open dune area to find the trailhead on the other side.  I had a phone on the handlebars for navigation.  Since we were not on a defined trail, I was looking at it periodically to ensure we were still headed the right way.  I suspect I looked away at just the wrong time.  I think distracted driving is the cause here.  I am a huge opponent of distracted driving.  I never text while driving.  My phone stays in my pocket.  I rarely even take calls, and never initiate one when driving.  In the future I will come to a stop before looking at the phone to navigate off-road.  Things just happen too fast, even at slow speeds off-road.  Of course, distracted driving on-road is a huge menace already and causes many bad accidents.  

Thankfully, the bike survived nearly unscathed. I have a Insta360 X3 camera I mount on the handlebars, which was still there and unharmed. Unfortunately, I had not started recording. There are some new scratches on the front of the front fender, and also on the left hand guard.  I think the front forks took much of the impact.  

I had ridden Bitter Springs itself just a couple weeks before. (YouTube playlist of that ride)

I had not ridden the Old Spanish trail or much of the rest of this route. When I rode Bitter Springs before we had taken I15 all the way to Crystal.  Bitter Springs itself is a fairly easy ride.  

Once I get healed up and riding again, we'll have to try this again, except maybe we will bypass the dunes altogether and of course stay very focused on riding.

3-14-2024 Update

Finally got my post operation x-rays.  You can see the hardware they added.  Bones aligned and healing nicely. This was taken 1 month after the surgery.

Some have asked if that hardware will remain in there.  Yes, it stays.  Made from titanium and meant to remain in there forever.  

Use an old smartphone for bike navigation

 

I enjoy mountain biking off-road and often in areas with no cellular.  Sometimes I ride in areas with many established trails that cross each other and navigation would help.  I looked into bike navigation but they have small screens, are costly, and many of the features are redundant with my Garmin fenix 6x Pro Solar watch.  I also never trade in my old smartphones so I have several fairly recent ones laying around.  I decided to use my old Motorola Z4 smartphone as a biking navigation using.  First I needed a real robust mount.  I started on Amazon and found this one. 

It grabs all 4 corners and locks in place.  

I cleared and reset the phone, removing all unnecessary apps to minimize battery consumption.  I also put it in airplane mode, and keep WiFi and Bluetooth off to save power.  The Moto Z4 I am using also supports MotoMod batteries, of which I have a few.  I am using the 2200mAh unit primarily and I can hot swap in others if it gets low on the trail (which is unlikely).  I could also connect the phone to the USB port in the bike display to keep it charged if I wanted.  I removed the SIM card as well so it would not search for cellular even out of airplane mode.  Then I installed Google Maps, Trailforks, Garmin Explore, and GAIA maps.  All of these offer offline maps of bike trails.  There are many others too.  So far I found GAIA to be the best for bike navigation as it can ever store satellite maps offline. 

Here is how I organized the home screen.   

Here is what GAIA maps looks like.

Here is a video showing the use of this riding some trails.

This first ride was on a pretty easy trail.  I have yet to test it on harsher rides but so far it seems solid.  I am of course by no means the first person to do this.  I wanted to use an old phone, and not my current phone, just in case that mount breaks or I crash the bike.  Also, I didn't want to drain the battery on the phone I use normally since I want to be able to make calls, or message through my Garmin satellite messenger in case of trouble.  

Garmin InReach Messenger Review

 

I like to ride my mountain bike up in the mountains.  Sometimes I am in canyons between mountains where there is no cellular reception.  I decided I needed a satellite messenger so I could always communicate, and for safety.  I already have a Garmin fenix 6X Pro Solar watch, and a Virb Ultra 30 camera so I decided to stick with Garmin for this as well.  As I was looking, they just introduced this InReach Messenger device so I bought one.  

This device integrates with the Garmin ecosystem so the watch can trigger tracking and well as SOS and other features.  This device also pairs with my smartphone so I can use the smartphone UI to create, send, read messages and other functions.  Using the smartphone is very handy as it has a nice big screen and I am very used to interacting with it versus learning a new UI that is far smaller.  The device uses a Messenger app to connect and interact with the device.  The device can be used stand-alone though which is great.  If for some reason I did not have my phone I could still communicate.  

I had read some reviews about this device as it was just coming out.  One of the pro's was great battery life.  I have found the battery life to be stellar actually.  I am writing this article in April and I have not charged it since last year.  It is still over 70%.  I use the device about 3 hours a weekend most weekends, year round.

Messaging is pretty simple and it can automatically switch between WiFi, Cellular, and Satellite as needed to minimize satellite charges.  I have never used all my messages in a month.  It also sends my location every 10 minutes so my family can see where I am regardless of cellular connection.  This is great for safety.  

Overall I would highly recommend this device for people who like to go places where there is no cellular.