Important Route Details About the
eveRide 988 Loop

How are the Tracks Organized?

The eveRide 988 Loop doesn't have a designated start or end point, although we recommend starting in St. George because it's the largest city within the Loop and has the most amenities, like a Rocky Mountain ATV/MC, a Costco, two Walmarts, and many camping stores. It's also where I live, so I can provide you with some fantastic services for your adventure (more on that later). Since it's one huge loop, with smaller loops inside of it, you can start and finish anywhere you like. You can ride it for just a day or you can ride for several weeks. There is no right or wrong way to do it.

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Each track name has all of the relevant information about the trail you'll be riding. An example track name would be:

REEF, D2, 20, Trail Name Goes Here, Warm, 2T, Rocky with deep ruts, riverbed gravel, steep rocky grades

There is a lot of information in this title! It starts with the region: REEF. This means it's in the general location of Capitol Reef National Park. Other regions generally align with the National Parks they are nearest to. ZION, BRYCE, REEF, ARCH, and even GRAND for the Grand Canyon. If you're planning a shorter trip, like a day or two, you might want to only look at the regions you're interested in riding in.

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After the region, you'll see the difficulty. There are just four difficulty rankings. P, D1, D2, and D3.

P means it's paved, indicated on the map (if it translates route colors to your GPS hardware) by a black route.

D1 means it's off-road, but the easiest difficulty. Wide dirt roads, relatively simple double tracks, rare sandy spots or babyheads, and gentle slopes. These are indicated by green routes.

D2 indicates a trail has some challenging features: sand, whoops, deep ruts, steep slopes, sketchy exposure, or other features that may be challenging. These are indicated by yellow routes.

D3 indicates a trail that has caused problems for me while scouting. Basically it's a trail where I have dropped my motorcycle. While scouting, I found many "red" trails that didn't make the cut. However, the D3 Red trails that did make the cut are incredibly  good if you enjoy a challenge. You can expect difficult deep sand, large loose rocks, steep slopes, ruts, dangerous exposure, step-ups or drops, deep water crossings, or other features that may very challenging.

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Next is simple. The number you see is the mileage for the trail. This quick glance of the mileage in the title should help you plan the day's total mileage, fuel stops, and rest breaks.

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Then you have the trail name. One example is "Wild Horse Goblin Factory" because it routes through Goblin Valley to Factory Butte, on Wild Horse Road. I tried to keep the names fun and weird. You'll be able to see the actual road names on your mapping software, so you can look up more details on each route before your trip if you need to.

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Then there's the weather indicators: Hot, Warm, Mild, Cool, and Cold. These are the temperatures you can expect in the summer months. Hot means it may be 100+ degrees in summer, but likely 60 in winter. Cold means it's 60 degrees or below in summer, with a chance of snow and freezing temperatures even in summer months. Cold routes will definitely be covered in snow in winter months.

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Next we have the road surface: P means paved, DR is for Dirt Road, 2T is Two Track, and ST is Single Track. Sometimes this gets a little redundant because of the final description, but I thought it would be handy at a glance.

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Then there's a brief description of what you might come up against. Some examples are ruts, rocks, sand, points of interest, or even warnings to fuel up before departing. On one of the tracks, a dirt road over the famous, heavily traveled, and vastly overrated "Hell's Backbone" trail, I simply said, "The paved road is better." Because it is. The Hell's Backbone trail is fine, but the paved road to the same destination is one of the most beautiful and fun to ride strips of tarmac I've ever been on.

How Should I Decide Which Tracks to Take? When is the Best Time to Ride It?

That's what's nice about the 988 tracks! Before you import them to your navigation device, you can upload them to a website called gpx.studio. (That's actually where I had to redraw every single trail on the whole eveRide 988 Loop from memory after crashing and destroying my tablet with all of my tracks.) You can easily see the difficulty, regions, mileage, and descriptions of each track. There, you can right click on the track tab and hide or delete the tracks you're not interested in doing. Connect the trails you want to ride with highways, then export the tracks you want to take to your GPS hardware or Smart Phone.

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Eww. What if I don't want to ride pavement? Riding the eveRide 988 Loop without riding the paved parts would be like eating cookie dough ice cream and picking out all the cookie dough. I promise you, the backroads and highways along the 988, even the ones I didn't explicitly add to the tracks, are gorgeous! One of the best parts about dual sport and ADV is the ability to ride dirt and pavement, and the pavement on the 988 is spectacular!

In fact, much of the eveRide 988 Loop could be ridden on a road bike if you simply link the highways and backroads to the roads I've suggested. Every year during my rallies, I see hundreds of cruisers, tourers, and sport bikes along the paved parts of the 988. Highway 12 and 24 are two of the most gorgeous highways in the United States. And the best part? There's hardly any traffic!

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Your trip might depend on a lot of factors. If you have a small gas tank in your group, you may choose shorter routes with more gas station markers. Going in the hottest part of summer? Plan your route to take the most "Cool, Mild, and Cold" routes as possible, and plan on waking up early while riding the "Hot" sections to avoid the heat. In the winter, do the opposite. Almost all of the "Hot" and "Warm" tracks of the eveRide Loop are still rideable in winter months!

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When it comes to regions and weather, generally BRYCE and REEF will be more comfortable in summer months. If riding in the winter, ZION will be best, and ARCH could be okay, but can still be cold and snowy. If you want to ride the majority of the Loop, late spring (Late May and June) and Early Fall (September and October) are the best times to ride. Granted, snow storms are absolutely possible in "Cold" high altitude areas in the hottest part of the summer, and generally the "Hot" areas are likely to be 80 degrees or above even in spring and fall. 

What do the Different Colors / Difficulties Mean? How Hard Could it Be?

Difficulty is subjective and hard to judge. My ratings are reasonable to me, but there is no doubt that some riders will find green D1 tracks very difficult. Likewise, some riders will tackle my red D3 tracks like they're nothing. Everybody is different, so just choose what you feel matches your riding level the best. If you have to turn around, there are still plenty of tracks to try.

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Bike sizes are also a big factor. I mapped these trails on a Suzuki DRZ 400, a KTM 500, and a Kove 450 Rally-- all relatively lightweight dual sports. I personally would find many of the yellow D2 trails to be quite difficult on a bike larger than 800 ccs. I've ridden a red D3 trail I named "ZION, D3, 19.7, Barracks Trail, Hot, 2T" on a Tiger 800 and it took nearly the whole day for me. The clutch on the tiger was spent, and so were the primary rider and I. We had to trade riding my DRZ 400 when the other got exhausted on the Tiger. On the DRZ, this sandy, curvy trail was a blast. On the Tiger 800, it was a serious chore.

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The eveRide 988 Loop is great because it's so flexible! There are plenty of routes to take if you need to change plans and difficulty mid journey.