One-way Distance: 0.6 miles
Difficulty: Easy
MTB Skill level:
Elevation: 5899 - 6034 feet
Cellphone: 3-5 bars
Time: 20 mins.
Trailhead: Jumbo Mountain
Fee: none
Attractions: Nice alternate route
The Bang Zoom trail is part of the Jumbo Mountain Trails System in Paonia, Colorado. It begins near the start of the Plumbers Crack trail where it follows an easy route through the trees cutting across the Pipeline Road and the Zip-N-Out trail and coming to an end at the start of the Herfendoodle trail.
To get to the trailhead head east on 3rd Street in Paonia and turn left onto Rio Grande Avenue. Follow Rio Grande as it crosses the creek and turns into Pan American Avenue and begins climbing the hill. The trailhead is at the end of Pan American Avenue. There is only room for a handful of vehicles to park at the trailhead but there is additional parking at the bottom of the hill at the Apple Valley Park where there is also a restroom.
Bang Zoom branches off of Plumbers Crack a little over 100 yards from where that trail splits with the Ridge of Doom trail.
The trail takes a well secluded route as it works its way through the mostly juniper forest.
While the terrain isn't flat the changes in elevation as the trail dips in and out of shallow washes and crosses small ridges are more fun than challenging.
Before reaching the quarter mile point Bang Zoom crosses the Pipeline Road and keeps going.
Once across the Pipeline Road the trail continues much as before.
Near the 0.3 mile point a cutoff trail branches off on the right that crosses Horseshoe Ridge and connects up with Zip-N-Out. A short distance past that Bang Zoom crosses Zip-N-Out.
From there Bang Zoom continues around the hill below Horseshoe Ridge. As the trees thin out this juniper tree has found plenty of room to grow to a massive size compared to others in the area.
As Bang Zoom comes to an end it transitions into the Herfendoodle trail at an unmarked intersection where another short spur branches off on the right that climbs up to the end of the Horseshoe Ridge trail. On the day that we were taking the photos for this post we kept going on Herfendoodle and after knocking it out we picked up 7 Bridges and Wapiti Whip before making our way back to the trailhead via Zip-N-Out. There are so many interconnecting trails that the options seem endless. If you would like to see it for yourself then all you have to do is grab your bike or 'Take a hike'.