The White Rim trail is a 100 mile off road loop in the Canyonlands National Park, the route circumnavigates the  Island Mesa high above the Green and Colorado Rivers….

Only 50 permits are issued each day, they are free and you get them online. There were 19 left for the day I applied.

Then you pay your $25 dollars as you enter the park and your off..

We stopped at the top of the Shafer Trail…

The trail drops down 300m (looking at my SAT NAV) in a very very short distance. 

At the top the view of the trail below is breathtaking…the first corner has a 180 degree turn, looks very narrow and as Gary put it “No room for error here”

We left most of our luggage at the campsite, but with tools onboard the bikes were still heavy…

…as we started to decend I could feel my heart pumping hard…constantly checking the brakes, in first gear keeping the speed in under control, we headed down..actually it was not too bad, and after a few corners you start to relax (a little)

I stopped to take some pictures, keeping the bike on the cliff side…

…actually I did not want it to be over too quickly in the end….

Once down you settle into the White Rim trail, this is 100 miles long and initially we (well me really) probably spent too much time taking pictures as that is a long old way around the Rim ….

The trail has all sorts of surfaces, Rock, Sand, Gravel, Steps, a couple of very steep climbs and miles of fast rolling trails…

and of course amazing views. 

As the heat climbed we were glad we had taken good advice and had lots of water and hydration fluids with us, the water was actually hot in the metal containers from the heat of the sun!

We met some guys out on the trail and saw the first Husky 701 since arriving in the USA nearly 5000 miles ago…

At least we think it was 701…it could be a fake!

About 50 miles in we met some cyclists, they were doing the Rim over 5 days and camping.

We had to push on now, the heat was taking all our energy, stopping more often for drinks, the miles were going down slowly

but we made it, the trail took around 9  hours and the bikes were amazing, this trail is not to be missed if you are in the area and I would do White Rim again (the other way around) if I had the chance, this time on a 100kg Trail Bike!