AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Athena Mountain Bike Trail is a 5.5-mile singletrack loop that twists through otherworldly badlands just off Interstate 70 near Green River, Utah. Opened in March 2018 on BLM land adjacent to a former Cold War missile test site, the trail weaves through vivid Morrison Formation slopes of purple, orange, white, and green mudstone while offering sweeping views of the Green River, Book Cliffs, and San Rafael Swell.↗↗
Designed and built by trail designer Scott Escott for the City of Green River and The Epicenter community nonprofit, the loop is rated intermediate to advanced and climbs roughly 600 vertical feet per lap in short, punchy undulations rather than any prolonged ascent. The name honors the Lockheed Athena missile, which was regularly launched from the adjacent Green River Test Site during the 1960s.↗↗
A Cold War Landscape Reborn for Riders
The Athena trail occupies land that spent the 1960s as the Green River Test Site, where the U.S. military launched long-range Athena intercontinental missiles on suborbital trajectories toward White Sands, New Mexico. After the base closed in the 1970s, its buildings and concrete tent pads—still visible along the access road, giving locals the nickname "tent city"—sat abandoned. In 2018, the City of Green River and The Epicenter, a nonprofit community design center, hired Moab-based trail builder Scott Escott (of Grand County Trail Mix) to cut a singletrack loop through this forgotten terrain. Funded roughly 50/50 by Utah Outdoor Recreation and National Parks Economic Development grants, the ribbon-cutting took place on March 17, 2018.
