The Pahvant Range, the western wall
West of Richfield Fishlake National Forest Peaks past 10,000 ft
The Pahvant Range is the long mountain wall on the west side of Richfield. It takes its name from the Pahvant band of the Ute, it runs roughly fifty miles north to south, and Richfield sits at its southeast foot on the Sevier River valley floor. The tallest summits, Pioneer Peak at 10,466 feet and Mine Camp Peak at 10,222, stand back toward Fillmore, but the southern end of the range rises straight up out of town to the west. Most of it is Fishlake National Forest, which is why the recreation up there is open public land rather than a patchwork of gates.
For most of its history the Pahvant was hunting and grazing backcountry that you reached on rough roads, and plenty of it still is. What changed is that Richfield built a mountain bike trail system into the range's west face, and that is the part most visitors now actually touch. It gets its own entry below.
From the valley the range reads as a dry sage and juniper face that climbs into oak, then fir and aspen near the top. That change from desert to alpine over a few thousand vertical feet is exactly what you ride through on the descent that made the range famous.
The details
Getting there
Look west from Main Street and the Pahvant wall is the skyline. The way onto it is Forest Road 096, the gravel continuation of 300 North, which climbs from the west edge of town up into the range. Everything on the west side branches off that road.
The Pahvant Trail System
Up Forest Road 096 Over 50 miles Summer and fall
The Pahvant Trail System is the reason Richfield now talks about itself as a trail town. It is a network of more than fifty miles of purpose built singletrack on the west face of the Pahvant Range, built and looked after by the Richfield Trails Committee together with the Forest Service. The trails start high in the aspens and drop through fir, oak, pinyon and juniper to the sage flats at the valley floor, so a single ride can move through several life zones.
You reach it by driving west out of town. Forest Road 096 is the gravel continuation of 300 North, and it is the spine of the whole system: side trails like Faulty, Kiln-It and One-in-a-Pinion branch off it, along with the marquee descent, Spinal Tap. Because the high end sits near 9,000 to 9,700 feet, the full network is a summer and fall thing, roughly July into mid October, though the lower trails dry out and open earlier.
Two locally run shuttles drive the road so you can ride down without grinding up, and there is a bike shop in town for rentals and repairs. For a place this size, that is an unusual amount of built recreation on the doorstep.
The details
Before you go
- The lower trails ride first, usually by late May; the top is not reliably clear until midsummer.
- A shuttle turns the long descents into downhill days; book ahead in the busy fall weeks.
- Carry water and layers; the top is cool and the bottom is high desert on the same ride.
- The Paiute ATV Trail also crosses this country; that motorized network has its own guide.
Spinal Tap, alpine to desert
Upper Pahvant to the valley floor 18 miles, one way Expert
Spinal Tap is the trail that put Richfield on the map for mountain bikers, and it is worth understanding even if you never ride it, because it tells you what the Pahvant Range is shaped like. It is an eighteen mile, one way descent that starts in the aspens near White Pine Peak at about 9,700 feet and finishes in dry juniper badlands at the valley floor. That is roughly 4,000 feet of drop over its length, one of the longest continuous downhill rides in Utah.
It comes in three sections, upper, middle and lower, and each can be ridden on its own, so it is not only a one shot expert epic. Most riders take a shuttle up Forest Road 096 rather than pedal the climb, and the drive to the top runs about forty minutes. The season is short, generally July through mid October, and the lowest couple of miles cross BLM land while the rest is national forest.
For a relocating buyer the useful detail is simpler than the stats: a genuinely notable trail begins a short drive from Main Street, and the town has organized shuttles, a bike shop and a volunteer trails committee around it. That is the difference between a place that has mountains and a place that has figured out how to use them.
The details
The hillside R and the west bench
The west bench above town Free Most of the year
Look toward the Pahvant side and you will see a white R on the foothills. It is Richfield's hillside letter, the kind of monogram nearly every Utah town keeps, and it sits on the west bench where the valley floor tips up toward the range. The short climb to it is the everyday walk for a lot of people here, close to town, with the whole Sevier Valley opening up behind you as you gain a little height.
From the R and the benches around it you get the clearest read on the geography this page is about. The Pahvant wall is at your back to the west, the Sevier River threads the valley below, and Cove Mountain and the Sevier Plateau stand across the valley to the east. It is a ten minute errand that doubles as the best orientation you can get to how Richfield sits between its two mountains.
Treat it as a bench walk rather than a mountain hike. It is dry and exposed, so it is a cool morning or an evening in summer, and it is often walkable in winter when the high country is closed by snow.
The details
Cove Mountain and the Sevier Plateau
East and southeast of town Sevier Plateau High country
Across the valley to the east and southeast, the mountain you are looking at is Cove Mountain, the northern high country of the Sevier Plateau. Where the Pahvant is a range, the Sevier Plateau is a long, high tableland, and its northern end, the Cove Mountain and Monroe Mountain country, forms the east wall of the Sevier Valley. Monroe Peak, the plateau's local high point, tops out around 11,220 feet, and the forest roads up top run through some of the biggest aspen stands in this part of Utah.
This is the wilder, higher and less developed of the two walls. There is no built trail system like the Pahvant's over here. Instead it is national forest high country reached by gravel backways, the kind of place you go for aspen in the fall, dispersed camping, hunting and long views rather than a marked loop. The Paiute ATV Trail climbs onto this plateau too, and that network is covered on its own page.
Cove Mountain is a common Utah place name, so it is worth being plain about which one this is: the Cove Mountain on the Fishlake National Forest between Richfield, Glenwood and Koosharem, not any of the others scattered around the state.
The details
Getting there
The plateau is reached by gravel backways that climb from the valley towns at its foot, and by the Paiute ATV Trail. Read the linked Paiute ATV Trail guide for the motorized routes, and check the road status at the ranger office below before you head up.
The Richfield Ranger District
115 East 900 North Fishlake National Forest 412,859 acres
Both walls answer to the same landlord, and its office is in Richfield. The Fishlake National Forest Richfield Ranger District manages 412,859 acres across Sanpete, Sevier and Piute counties, including the Monroe and Cove Mountain ranges, Cedar Mountain and the Old Woman Plateau. The district office shares a building with the Fishlake forest headquarters at 115 East 900 North, which means the people who manage the mountains you can see from a Richfield porch work a few blocks from downtown.
Stop in for the practical part before you drive up. The office hands out free travel maps and the current road and trail status, sells firewood and Christmas tree permits in season, and keeps a small gift shop run with the Paiute Trails Committee. On a forest this size, with roads that open and close by weather and by fire, that map and that status check are worth the visit.
The district runs from a low point of 5,320 feet at the forest boundary to 11,547 feet at Mt. Terrill. That spread is the short version of why the seasons up top are so different from the seasons on the valley floor.
The details
Annabella Reservoir and the forest lakes
The high country, both walls Free Summer and fall
The forest on both walls holds a scatter of small reservoirs that are the low key fishing and picnic spots locals use. The closest to town is Annabella Reservoir, a small water at the foot of the Cove Mountain side near the town of Annabella, a few minutes southeast of Richfield. Higher up and deeper in, the district keeps a string of others, Manning Meadow, Rex, Farnsworth, Salina and the Box Creek reservoirs among them, most of them small and quiet.
None of these is a marquee destination, and that is the point of naming them. They are where a family drives up on a summer evening to throw a line in without a plan, the mountain version of the neighborhood park. The bigger waters, Fish Lake up the plateau and the Sevier River through the valley, have their own pages.
Check the road in before you commit. Many of these sit at the end of gravel that turns to mud when it is wet, and the higher ones stay snowed in well into summer.
The details
Fall aspen and the high backways
Both walls, best on the plateau Late September High clearance
If you only go up the mountains once a year, make it late September or early October. The aspen on Cove Mountain and the Sevier Plateau turn in big unbroken stands, and the gravel backways that are just dusty roads in July become one of the best fall color drives in central Utah. The Pahvant side turns too, though its aspen sit higher and in smaller pockets.
These are scenic backways, not paved byways, so a fall color drive here means a high clearance vehicle, a full tank and a look at the forecast. An early storm can close the tops overnight. The trade is that you rarely share them; this is quiet country next to the aspen drives on the Wasatch Front.
The same roads carry the Paiute ATV Trail and, on the Pahvant side, the shuttle road to the bike trails, so fall is when the two walls are busiest. Up here that still means you might pass a handful of trucks in an afternoon.
