Escape Adventures

Explore what the sublime Sonoran Desert has to offer with the Best of Phoenix and Black Canyon Trail (BCT) Mountain Biking Tour! This tour is great for close groups of biking friends looking for a fun excursion.  

The first day starts off 27-miles northeast of Phoenix with a drive to Mcdowell Mountain, a 21,099-acre regional park. Once there, we’ll warm up our biking legs with a fast and flowy single track. Riding local conservancy lands, the landscape opens onto a beautiful XC, or cross-country trail system; one that encompasses more than 40-miles of fast and flowy, mountain bike specific singletrack. The terrific abundance of flora and fauna throughout this area makes for a perfect introduction, or interpretation of the vibrant Arizona desert. The network crosses habitat for Javelina, deer, coyotes, plus a terrific variety of raptors and songbirds. From there, it’s a drive out to Bumble Bee Ranch for some First-Class Camping and a relaxing shower to end the day...

Rolling down National Scenic Highway 101 along the foothills and beaches of the Pacific Northwest, our Oregon road cycling tour pulls out all the stops to truly showcase and fully savor the beautifully diverse Oregonian coastline, one of the state’s Seven Wonders.

Starting from the Columbia River at the state’s northwest edge, we wend our way along what locals call the People’s Coast, Oregon’s entirely public owned coastline—360-miles from end to end—enjoying forested seastacks, sandstone cliffs, vibrant inlets, not to mention oxygen rich ocean breezes. Blissfully detached from noise, commercialism or the crush of cars, the reality of Coastal Oregon lends itself to unparalleled road biking.

Our cycling tour is further distinguished by a hump, or layover day. This break form the saddle affords the opportunity to explore several state parks nearby; enjoying the rugged coast at our respective leisure.  We then head to Reedsport, where lush forest gives way to thousands of acres of cream-colored sand dunes in the Oregon Dunes National Recreation Area.

Evenings are spent in quaint campgrounds, or inns; one and all are brought to a theatric close with a brilliant Pacific Ocean sunset.  This cycling trips rewards with no less than a lifetime of memories shaped by a weeklong experience that interprets, if not drinks in the very best of coastal Oregon!

Picture vibrant sandstone walls chiseled by the mighty Colorado River, lit by the evening glow of a desert sunset, and backed by a magnificent range of snow-capped mountains. In the midst of Utah’s Canyon Country, Moab’s backcountry provides the perfect setting for your multi-sport adventure.

At Arches, we’ll hike through a geological wonderland, where natural exhibits of pinnacles, arches, pedestals, and balancing rocks seem to defy the laws of physics. Contrasting colors, textures, and landforms distinguish the many vegetation zones of this canyon country, each offering its own kind of adventure. At Dead Horse Point and Island In The Sky, expansive views of maze-like chasms typify our road biking experience along the acclaimed mesa.

Moab’s canyon country’s vertical landscape challenges us with fantastic introductory canyoneering. And, while the Colorado River’s power is present everywhere throughout our adventure, nowhere is it better realized than on our exciting day of river rafting.

Adventure seekers lacking outdoors experience, or family-groups will find this tour a perfect match of package options and tempo.

The profusion of rides, coupled to wide variability of terrain makes this trip easy to customize. We can both accommodate and adapt this tour according to group-size; including seasoned riders, families, all the way to riders new to road biking.

The star of the Cascade Mountain Range, Mount St. Helens might be best known for its eruption over 40 years ago. And while the summit is craterous, and dried volcanic streams are still visible, the area features verdant forests riddled with creeks, lakes, and waterfalls. There is plenty to explore and enjoy in the shadow of this iconic peak. During your six day summertime Mountain Biking Tour with Escape Adventures, we’ll cover all of the highlights and hidden treasures (did someone say cave exploration?) while enjoying gourmet meals and first class camping under the stars.

Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and Gifford Pinchot National Forest boasts a remarkably extensive trail system that runs through this geological patchwork. This area has been left dormant for years, and has been reopened to the public fairly recently, revealing coils of backcountry single-track to explore. The scenery will transition between deep shaded forests twists and turns to majestic views along exposed mountain ridges.

You’ll get an up-close look at volcanic lahars and the new and different terrain created by the eruption, but you’ll also enjoy serene evergreen forest complete with colorful wildflowers, magical meadows, and plenty of plenty of cold, crisp water to refresh you during the summer months during which this tour operates.

We take on a moderate amount of mileage each day, but keep in mind, our routes contain lots of climbing and several ridge trails. So while the mileage is relatively low, the landscape can prove challenging for the less experienced. If you have any concerns, they can be discussed while booking. At Escape Adventures, we can help you through every step of the process so that you can feel confident in your tour’s fit for you!

Picture yourself cruising into camp, thoroughly gassed but still blissed out by a mountain bike trail that truly took your measure. Before you can kick off your cycling shoes, you’re led to a freshly prepared, scrumptious dinner. Beyond that multicourse fare, lay a cascading natural hot spring. Can you handle that truth: five days of fast if transfixing mountain bike rides, bookended by brilliant hot springs and wild rivers make up the deliverables, cut and shaped by the strong-featured Sawtooth Mountains.

We ride beneath the shadows of Greylock Mountain, cycling quick chutes through the Boise and Payette river backcountry. Like off-ramps to paradise, our course features stopovers at a succession of remote natural hot springs. Other highlights include a triad of noteworthy mining towns: Atlanta, Lowman, and Pine.

This tour merges kinder-gentler riding with soothing hot spring soaks. We’ve taken the best scenery, historic sights, and terrain from our classic Hot Springs tour, and made it accessible for beginning and intermediate riders. We take advantage of Idaho’s extensive network of jeep road and doubletrack so that van support can be available for riders to customize their rides. Mother Nature’s healing waters, forever sought by people the world over, await us each night, witnessed only by the starry constellations overhead.

Moab, Utah’s Hottest New Trails. Even if you’ve never visited Moab (pop. 5000) before, you’ve very likely seen it. About 245-miles south of Salt Lake City, Moab and its dramatic surroundings served as the backdrop for countless Golden Era Westerns.  Moab’s history is by turns rich as varied: From a Mormon outpost on the Spanish Trail (1800’s), to Wild-West era outlaw haunt or lair, to base for hard-rock miners and rare mineral prospectors. In as much its latest reincarnation is a fairly new one. While the beauty that verges on hyperrealism of Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Parks has drawn nature-lovers for generations, it’s the land edging and surrounding the parks that’s utterly redefined Moab, from erstwhile park lodging base to world-class adventure travel destination.


Moab, circa 2018, has it all: from white-water rafting to horseback riding, phenomenal climbing routes to the five diamond mountain biking. Forasmuch, it was this incomparable grouping of big outdoor recreational opportunities and pursuits that compelled the first wave of adventurer-seekers to settle here, and thus transform this delightful little city.

Our tour is like a Moab’s Best Of/greatest hits album. Signature slickrock trails offer challenging, if fun rides for all levels of riders, marked by seemingly endless singletrack that shade each day. Off the bike, our tours have built-in side hikes. The latter lend intimate optics onto some of the area’s most astonishing natural features, as we view-find from characteristic natural arches to age-old petroglyphs. Invariably it’s not a stretch by any means to see a genuine dinosaur footprint out on one of our select trails.

Less ice, more true wilderness. While big swathes of North America deals with snow and icy roads, we consider our great fortune: to enjoy exemplary outdoor wintertime adventure in the heart of the Mojave Desert, from Death Valley National Park to Red Rock Canyon.

Roam America’s largest national park outside Alaska: 3,373,063-acre Death Valley National Park. Despite its rather foreboding name, Death Valley represents a stellar trekking destination. Hikers and bikers, climbers to rock hounds come to marvel at Spring’s astounding wildflower blooms, not to mention the mild temperatures of fall and winter. Outdoorspeople will relish no less than 3,000-square miles of headspace, while cyclists find enviable elbowroom afforded by 350-miles of road and trails. (A full 91% of Death Valley is designated wilderness.)

We cycle across the big valley floor, stopping to visit historic sites, most of them accessed by 1930s-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) roads. Almost immediately we come to appreciate a very subtle legacy of the CCC: the bygone wisdom seen in roads built to respect, rather than conquer the landscape.

From slick Kevlar tires to thick Vibram soles, we navigate around and visually inhale sunbaked foothills, knolls, and stacks of boulders etched in yellow clay, rose and tan. These fantastic landscape features would serve as the backdrop for the first Star Wars film, Death Valley standing in for the planet Tatooine.

Each day in this storied place—contemplating 20-mule team wagons, Death Valley Scotty, the lost 49ers—you wake up in unfettered horizon. The evenings are given over to serious unwinding—“Prickly Pear margaritas, anyone?”—wrapped in great theatre: watching the two-mile high, 60-mile long Panamint Mountains, the valley’s defining range to the West, transition from shades of cool blue to a deep, purple bruise as the evening light drops away. In the other direction, the Amargosa range to the east is nothing less than radiant, bathed in bronze tones.
We are the authentic conscience of adventure outfitters: our desert West trips represent the standard by which others judge. Or aspire to. Reflexively, when you experience these lands by mountain bike, led by people who have a deep connection to Red Rock and Death Valley, you’ll quickly learn this is not a place to be endured, but rather a world-class outdoor recreation destination.

Our High Lakes Multi-Sport Adventure stages from the base of Mount Bachelor: just outside the city of Bend, Oregon (pop. 91,000, a logging town turned outdoor recreation gateway). Distinct for his bold, rakish demeanor, if not a discernible insularity Mt Bachelor, “the little volcano with a big view”, is surrounded by five snow-fed lakes around which a sinewy circuit of trails extends far and wide.

Bachelor and the adjacent Deschutes National Forest wield a fantastic array of outstanding, yet little used backcountry trails and roads. Crossing three Oregon counties, the wilderness on the Cascades’ east flank shelters waterfalls and big evergreens. In the brilliant cool air, an outdoorsperson can’t help but find all manner of major contentment. From the churning edge of the Deschutes River, our tour unfolds in multiple chapters: from cycling to rafting the rapids to rock climbing.

Smith Rock, one of Oregon’s Seven Wonders, is a visual paradise as well as a rock climbing mecca. A gloriously green, 641-acre state park, Smith Rock (near Redmond, Oregon) is a wild mix and match of spires and sheer tufts of basalt. Besides providing habitat to Golden eagles and Prairie falcons, the bluffs and spires lording over Smith Rock have a showy side, projecting gorgeous silhouettes onto already spectacular sunsets.

It is the striking visage of the Grand Tetons that sets it apart from the rest of the Rocky Mountains. First, in the highest, sky-scraping thrust—an abrupt 7000-ft jut above Jackson Hole—that peers over a no less impressive supporting cast. So sharply serrated, the sub-peaks evoke a Great White shark’s lower jaw stretched atop a high plateau. Only 40-miles long by ten-miles wide, this relatively small segment of the Rockies is also the youngest. Unlike other ranges in the Rockies, the Tetons have not been around long enough to acquire the foothills, or softer lines shaped by centuries of erosion. The Grand Teton National Park and adjoining National Forest protect this unique geographical feature, which peaks out at 13,770 feet; not to mention the wildlife, wildly lush subalpine meadows, and rich recreation opportunities we savor.

Our mountain bike tour hugs four distinct regions around cowboy-artsy Jackson Hole and the surrounding Teton Range. On the valley floor, in the “hole” surrounded by mountains, we ride the rolling prairie trails of Antelope Flats. To the east, we loop around through the Red Hills/Gros Ventre area on the Ditch Creek Trail. From here, directly across the valley and south of the Teton Mountains, we can see the Munger Trails. And to the west, on the Idaho side of the Tetons, we enjoy the 600-acre Grand Targhee Resort in Alta, Wyoming, descending purpose-built singletrack for an afternoon. The first DH-specific destination in the Tetons, the Grand Targhee’s 70-miles of multi-use trails spans gentle-banked cruising to tighter, XC singletrack to more challenging trails. Lift access delivers 2200-vertical feet of downhill riding.

Each glorious morning, set against the dramatic Tetons, we’ll traverse peaks, cirques, U-shaped canyons and glacial lakes. Sweeping through big mountain ecosystems, we’ll pass Ticklegrass to Tufted Hair Grasses; crossing moose, elk, Pika and Yellow Bellied Marmot habitat, among others. More experienced mountain bikers will thrill to the Tetons inspiring elevations and dynamic trails!

Less ice, more true wilderness. While big swathes of North America deals with snow and icy roads, we consider our great fortune: to enjoy exemplary outdoor wintertime adventure in the heart of the Mojave Desert, from Death Valley National Park to Red Rock Canyon.

Roam America’s largest national park outside Alaska: 3,373,063-acre Death Valley National Park. Despite its rather foreboding name, Death Valley represents a stellar trekking destination. Hikers and bikers, climbers to rock hounds come to marvel at Spring’s astounding wildflower blooms, not to mention the mild temperatures of fall and winter. Outdoorspeople will relish no less than 3,000-square miles of headspace, while cyclists find enviable elbowroom afforded by 350-miles of road and trails. (A full 91% of Death Valley is designated wilderness.)

We cycle across the big valley floor, stopping to visit historic sites, most of them accessed by 1930s-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) roads. Almost immediately we come to appreciate a very subtle legacy of the CCC: the bygone wisdom seen in roads built to respect, rather than conquer the landscape.

From slick Kevlar tires to thick Vibram soles, we navigate around and visually inhale sunbaked foothills, knolls, and stacks of boulders etched in yellow clay, rose and tan. These fantastic landscape features would serve as the backdrop for the first Star Wars film, Death Valley standing in for the planet Tatooine.

Each day in this storied place—contemplating 20-mule team wagons, Death Valley Scotty, the lost 49ers—you wake up in unfettered horizon. The evenings are given over to serious unwinding—“Prickly Pear margaritas, anyone?”—wrapped in great theatre: watching the two-mile high, 60-mile long Panamint Mountains, the valley’s defining range to the West, transition from shades of cool blue to a deep, purple bruise as the evening light drops away. In the other direction, the Amargosa range to the east is nothing less than radiant, bathed in bronze tones.

We are the authentic conscience of adventure outfitters: our desert West trips represent the standard by which others judge. Or aspire to. Reflexively, when you experience these lands by mountain bike, led by people who have a deep connection to Red Rock and Death Valley, you’ll quickly learn this is not a place to be endured, but rather a world-class outdoor recreation destination.