Zion Day Ride September 2026

 

Las Vegas summers are hot. Luckily we have places nearby which are cooler in the summer. One of those areas is Southwest Utah (Zion, Bryce, Brian Head, etc.). A friend and I organized a motorcycle ride starting in Virgin Utah, and making a 160 mile loop through Zion (highway 9) and Duck Creek Village, riding mostly dirt roads in the area. We had nine people join, including one from Virgin, one from Cedar City, and the rest from the Las Vegas area. From Las Vegas it is about 2 hours to Virgin where we met up at the Zion Park & Ride lot. 

Here is the proposed main loop: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01M1YR2G90TNQ7QTW0N4HMA14X 

I also created an OnX folder for more than the route: https://webmap.onxmaps.com/offroad/share/content?share_id=01M0NWH0C1K0FR6S7PCP8AJTK6

We had to go around a section that allowed me to route on OnX but was private, gated, and posted (circled in pink). We took the route highlighted in green.

There is gas at Deer Creek, about half way through the loop. This is a fairly easy adventure ride (from what I can tell). The hardest section on OnX is a 4/10 but that is only about 1.5 miles.

That hardest section was the Harris Rim Loop Connector. As we got to that section, a couple other riders had just climbed it. I talked to one of them who said it was awful and that we should avoid it. However, there is not a decent option so we rode it anyway. We all made it through just fine. 

The photo below is us gather up at the end of that connector trail.

Here is a Cardo Ride overview of our route.

Here is a YouTube playlist of several videos from the ride: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLR8gXJFpgGoE&si=qOAuTucZV4psbW-A 

Cardo Ride: https://riserapp.com/trips/1945988

Google Photos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pBQgHUcJY1mJFoPz7