The Hurricane Cliffs are the geological backbone of southern Washington County. The cliff face runs north–south for roughly 200 miles, from the Cedar Mountain country in Iron County south through Hurricane and Virgin and across the Arizona line to the Grand Canyon. The cliffs are the surface expression of the Hurricane Fault — an active normal fault where the earth's crust has dropped down to the west by hundreds of feet, leaving the higher Colorado Plateau ground exposed as the cliff face. Most of the consequential mountain biking, sport climbing, and freeride mountain biking in the southern half of the 435 is on or under the Hurricane Cliffs.
A working fault
The Hurricane Fault is one of the more prominent normal faults in the western Colorado Plateau and has a documented record of Quaternary-period earthquake activity. The fault is considered active by USGS — small earthquakes occur along its trace periodically, and the geologic record shows several significant prehistoric ruptures. The cliff itself is the cumulative product of millions of years of fault movement, with the Colorado Plateau ground (the higher, eastern side) standing above the dropped-down basin (the western side) where Hurricane and St. George sit. The cliff face exposes Permian and Triassic sedimentary layers — limestone, sandstone, mudstone — capped by volcanic basalts in places.
The mountain biking system
The Hurricane Cliffs trail system runs along and across the cliff face from Hurricane south toward Virgin. JEM (the headline trail) traverses the upper cliff with broad rim views; Goulds and Hurricane Rim offer point-to-point and shuttle options; More Cowbell and Dead Ringer add descent-focused options. Over the Edge Sports in Hurricane has built much of the trail network and is the principal trailhead-services anchor. The cliffs' east-side slickrock and west-side red-dirt singletrack combine to make this one of the most-trafficked trail networks in the western U.S., with year-round (winter spring fall) riding except summer afternoons.
Climbing on the cliff bands
The Hurricane Cliffs hold sport-climbing development on the volcanic-and-sandstone bands. The Wailing Wall (Hurricane), Welcome Springs / Welcome Spring Wall (Hurricane area), and various smaller bolted areas are the working climbing destinations on the cliffs. Most of the lines are sport-bolted, with grade ranges from 5.10 through 5.13 on athletic, sometimes overhanging walls. The newer Hurricane Cliffs sport development has grown faster than any other climbing area in the county over the 2020s.
Red Bull Rampage and the freeride layer
The Red Bull Rampage — the world's most-watched freeride mountain biking event — is held on private property on the cliff above Virgin, on a section of the Hurricane Cliffs uplift north of town. The constructed lines — the canyon gap, the step-down ridge, the various drops — are visible from UT-9 when the course is dressed for filming. The event has been staged on irregular schedules since 2001 and has shifted location within the broader Hurricane Cliffs corridor over the years; the current site is on private land managed in coordination with BLM-adjacent access.
What the cliffs are for
For most Washington County residents the cliffs are the visual horizon — the long red-and-orange wall that defines the eastern side of the Virgin River basin. For mountain bikers, climbers, freeride athletes, and OHV riders, the cliffs are the structural anchor of the regional outdoor recreation economy. The cliff face is the single most consequential piece of physical geography in the southern half of the county: every settlement-era canal had to crack through it, every modern recreation activity relies on it, and the geologic fault that built it still moves.