Gold Canyon: Hoo Doo

I was feeling pretty pumped about finally completing a massive Gold Canyon all encompassing trail ride on Sunday (Route flyover here) only to find out Monday morning a new trail had been unveiled!! Oh well, I guess I'll have to do it again.

The new trail is called Hoo Doo and I had to go see what all the fuss was about. Yowza!! What a superbly routed trail through the chunk and heights near the Wilderness boundary. This trail is not for the faint of heart. Advanced/Expert riders only!! It's also a one-way trail, riding from west to east.

Hoo Doo is not for the spineless.

A little over a mile onto the Lost Goldmine trail, at the top of the descent towards Cougar, you'll find a small cairn signaling the start of Hoo Doo.

About 30 feet up the faint trail, it forks, veer right as the left fork deadends at the Wilderness fence. The climbing gets underway almost immediately as well as the technical nature of the trail.

One of the early rock features.

A very tough, sketchy power move coming into view.

It didn't take long to get high above Lost Goldmine trail near the Cougar junction.

Some nice trail too.

Off camber 'Superstition Slickroack' section. Be alert for upslope pedal strikes!!

The trail wrapped around the rock dome and began a gradually increasing descent towards an open area of slickrock. Up to this point there were occasional white dots spray painted on the rock to guide you along, but they ended at this area. It looked a bit like a freeride zone, but I couldn't make out any lines down, even for walking!! I had to consult the Trailforks app to see where the trail went from here. It appeared to make a 90º lefthand turn and sure enough I soon found the trail cut into the side of the hill. Perhaps a few more white dots are needed??

A molten wave of rock, frozen in time. This was where the dots ended, so when you come to these rocks, turn left!!

More crumbly angled slickrock.

From here, the end is in sight. Not far away, only means one thing: the trail drops in a hurry.

The trail soon became uncomfortably steep for me, so I did the downhill HAB thing and even that was a challenge.

Down into the big boulders.

Steep, twisting, downhill rock chute. Whoa.

One of the last trail features is this huge optional boulder roll.

Hoo Doo may only be 0.8 miles long, but it packs a punch. Reminiscent of Hangover trail in Sedona in spots where the penalty for failure is tougher than the move itself. This trail definitely ups the gnar factor at Gold Canyon.

While I walked my fair share, I love this addition to the system. Here's a long Gold Canyon Tech route I put together hitting all the tougher areas. (You can omit the far east trails past Jodie's Dream to cut down the mileage)

I was barely two miles into my ride, time to check out a trail I saw earlier in the week up on Quartz Ridge. At the top of the main climb, the trail comes to a tee where most riders go right, today I went left. A jeep road crests a small saddle and there's a trail wrapping around the backside of the mountain here. It starts with a couple solid grunt moves but there has been some mild rerouting work done. The trail kept going and I noticed another trail splitting off up high, but that will be for another day. The trail eventually came back down and around the front side of the mountain and tied back into one of the many dirt roads.

The exit of the Quartz East trail, marked with a cairn.

I finished up ripping along K-Trail and connected to the gate off Blackhawk rd and out to Baseline ave where I had parked. I'm looking forward to more tech trails coming online and hopefully some more in the hills by Quartz Ridge. Hard to believe this area was virtually unknown 5 years ago.

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