Pants Loop

Total Miles 8.3
Technical Rating
2 Easy
Best Time Winter
Trail Type Single Track
Accessible By
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Trail Overview

The Pant's Loop is one of the longer trails in this trail system, starting off of Cathedral Canyon Road and ending on Pahrump Road. It's a fast desert trail running through a Joshua Tree Forest with rugged desert mountains on all sides of you. The trail is narrow; only a foot wide or tire wide at parts. Some sections are smooth dirt so you can get going fast, but it also crosses a bunch of rocky ravines running perpendicular to the trail with big dips that you have to watch out for. Some of these ravines are a couple of feet wide, but some are 20-foot wide washes, and some are sandy. The west end of the trail is very faint and was maybe even rerouted to start farther down Cathedral Canyon Road, but it starts to be more beat in the farther you go. The east end of the trail ends at a road with a nice camp spot or staging spot. There aren't a lot of whoops on this trail because it doesn't look like it gets ridden very often, and you likely won't see many other riders. The majority of the trail is flat and there aren't any notable obstacles. This trail is an out and back but can be turned into a loop by riding the next section of Pants Connector, to the Ridge Trail and Pants Trail.

Photos of Pants Loop

Difficulty

This trail is rated easy because it is mostly flat with no big obstacles. It has a loose rocky surface in parts and lots of rocky ravine crossings to watch out for.

History

A portion of the Old Spanish Trail runs through this area, a historic transportation route from the 1800s.

Technical Rating

2

Status Reports

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Wide Open Vegas
Nov 28, 2025
Open
The difficulty rating is a 2/10 according to OnX, but I would give it at least a 3 for the simple fact that you have to cross three creek beds before you get to the “Hafen Spanish to Old Spanish Trail” which is close to the halfway point. This is where I turned around because I only had enough time for half the trail that day. It’s definitely a 1st-2nd gear trail as there are lots of rocks to navigate around, but the trail is well defined even after traversing the creek beds and it’s cool that you can download the offline maps which never failed and kept me on target the whole ride.
CJ Maurer
Oct 29, 2023
Open

Pants Loop Trail can be accessed by the following ride types:

  • Single Track

Pants Loop Map

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