Moab 2019 – Mag 7 Trail

The Magnificent 7 or “Mag 7” is a series of trails between Highway 191 and 313 in the Moab area. You can make loops on the trails, an out and back or point to point via a shuttle; the latter is what our team did. Our Mag 7 singletrack route started on Gateway, then Bull’s Run, the Great Escape, part of Little Canyon, and finally jumped onto the Geminin Bridges dirt road back to our bottom shuttle car.

Mileage 16.44 mi, Elevation – Gain 508ft, Descent 1712ft

Overview

The Gateway, Bull’s Run, Great Escape and Little Canyon were mostly down or flat, with a couple of small climbs on Great Escape. The first portion of Bull’s Run is fast, flowy and ledgy with some close moves over the Bull Run Canyon. I highly enjoyed the Great Escape, which had some great long slickrock slabs, and fun flowing maneuvers and even though it’s not part of the Mag 7, it’s a great optional trail.

Bull Run

The Bull Run trail is around a 5.5-mile route and was the first section of the Mag 7 system that was constructed. It flys along on fast and flowy slick rock, with long slabs, ledges, and steps, and follows along the edge of Bull Canyon.

It’s a very picturesque canyon, with great views all around, though you do need to keep watching the trail since some of the ledges and steps can be pretty abrupt. The canyon rim transitions from your left side to your right hand about a third of the way into the trail, providing a delightful alteration of your viewing point. Towards the end, the trail has some long doubletrack sections, that let you fly down the road.  The trail finally ends at the intersection of Arth’s Corner, Gateway, and Great Escape. Continue on Arth’s for the actual Mag 7 system, or reverse back uphill on the mellow Gateway, or you can turn off onto the superb Great Escape, which was where our adventure took us.

Great Escape

At the start of the Great Escape is a viewpoint of the stunning looking natural bridge arch system, and it’s well worth the short journey to overlook.

Most of the Great Escape is super fun flowy wavy slick rock, that undulates back and forth, with extended flatter areas interspersed with the typical surfing rollers. The Great Escape is still my favorite trail in the Moab area since it combines the sweet slick rock, with flats, rollers, techy climbs, and drops, and with very little sand. When I start to fly along the trail, I start hooting and hollering cause its just so much fun.

Along with the highly entertaining trail are the incredible view of Arches National Park and the La Sal mountains off in the distance.

The La Sal’s got a ton of snow this season, and according to locals they haven’t seen this much coverage in at least 20 years.

The Moab area has gotten some rain this spring, and all the flowers and cactus were in full bloom.