Desert Thanksgiving
Nov. 29th, 2017 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaNo, not pumpkin pie. That's desert with one 's', as in Arizona and New Mexico, where we spent our four-day weekend. Our friends Ryan and Steve wanted to ride the Black Canyon trail, a 70+ mile singletrack that is typically done over two days; Britt thought it sounded like fun, but I knew that I was in no shape to take on anything that epic, since I've only recently started riding my real bike again. But I was willing to run the car shuttle and go find something easier to ride while they tackled the BCT, so we enthusiastically signed on.
Ryan borrowed a 4-bike rack from a friend of hers, who turned out to be (small town alert!) the osteoporosis specialist I saw last Monday; on Wednesday afternoon we installed it onto our Sportsmobile, loaded up the bikes, food, and a lot of beer and wine, and headed south. We had dinner at the famous Cameron Trading Post, which still looked exactly the same as the last time we'd eaten there maybe 20 years ago, and stopped for the night in the National Forest near Sunset Crater. In the morning we got breakfast at a Village Inn in Flagstaff, after trying several diners which turned out to be closed for the holidays. Their heavy advertising for their pies worked on us, as we bought a piece of pecan pie (for me) and a pumpkin pie (for everyone else) for our desert Thanksgiving dessert.
On Thursday morning we drove to the Big Bug trailhead (where we saw a big bug, i.e. a tarantula, so no false advertising here!) and the three of them took off south. I drove back north a ways to the Dead Horse Ranch State Park near the town of Cottonwood to go on my own ride. (Fortunately I saw no dead horses.) I had planned to do a big figure-8 loop but decided to skip the first part of Raptor in favor of the singletrack Bones trail. It was loose and rocky and would have been more fun had it been 15° cooler - Arizona was "enjoying" unusually high temperatures - and so two miles in I took a connector and finished the uphill on Raptor, which was a bit easier. But I was out of shape, compared to my usual fitness level, and had to stop and rest and breathe before every steep bit, so I quickly realized I was not going to be able to complete the big loop in time to meet the others, and instead headed down when I got to the crossover of the 8. This was also more exciting than I really would have liked, with big drops down rock steps that taxed my psychological fitness - though I felt pretty good when I successfully negotiated them! (I should have taken some photos, but I didn't see any inspiring views.)
After a quick shower at the state park campground bathroom - the only shower any of us would have all weekend - I headed for the trail crossing where we had planned to meet up, only to get a text from Britt saying that they were running late because the trail had been harder than expected and they'd had a flat tire, so could I meet them at the "earlier alternative" trail crossing? It turned out that this spot was on a very rough 4WD road, the kind I hate driving on, and the last 2 miles took 20 minutes...but I got to where they were waiting, and we found a spot to camp just a few hundred feet down the road. There we had our Thanksgiving dinners, and pie for dessert; then we drank some wine, did some stargazing, and went to bed.
The BCT looked nice from a distance, but up close it's a TRAIL FULL OF NOPE and I'm glad I didn't ride it:
I wasn't looking forward to driving the rough road again, but Britt felt that the first day had taken a lot out of him and wanted to conserve his energy, so the next morning he drove the van to the place they had originally hoped to finish the first day, saving himself about five miles and an hour of effort, and saving me the nail-biting work of the 4WD driving. Then he set off down the trail and I waited for Ryan and Steve to let them know he was ahead of them (and to give them some extra water and chamois grease) before heading out for my own second day of riding.
This time I went southeast to Scottsdale, and the McDowell-Sonoran Preserve which was clearly an extremely popular destination, as the parking lot was jammed. It's a big enough area, though, that it never felt crowded, and it's really stunning - and exactly the difficulty level I am comfortable with right now, during my injury recovery. I rode the Brown's Ranch Perimeter Loop, and though I was a little worried I'd erred too much to the easy-boring side when it started out wide and flat, it soon turned to a lovely singletrack twisting among ocotillo and saguaro. In particular, the "High Desert Trail" portion of this route was super enjoyable, and the Balanced Rock and Amphitheatre formations were pretty and provided some welcome shade.
The others finished their ride around 5pm, a bit later than intended due to the difficulty of the terrain, a number of flat tires, and Ryan taking a spill into a prickly-pear cactus which required spine removal from her skin with tweezers and pliers. *shudder* After so much hard riding over two days, the consensus was that instead of riding on Saturday, we should go for a hike, so I drove the crew to a spot where we could camp near the trailhead of a hike Britt had heard about but never done. Certainly the name of the hike intrigued us:
Yep, we hiked to the Crack of Wet Beaver Creek! (The trail itself is the more boringly-named Bell Trail.) I had been nervous about doing such a (relatively) long hike, since the most I'd walked for since my injury was an hour, and it started hurting after fifteen minutes (though it never got super painful). But I had brought my hiking poles, which I ordinarily use only when backpacking, and Britt was carrying all our water and food so I didn't have any extra weight, and I managed the 7.5 miles roundtrip with only a few twinges!
Ryan and me as (inadvertent, I swear!) matchy-matchy twinsies:
The "crack" is a deep swimming hole between sheer rocky canyon walls, and it was a cool and refreshing destination on this hot day. All of us jumped in, though none of us stayed in the water long, because OMFGFREEZING! (We also went in clothed, since this is a popular hike and we didn't want to put on a show for all the other people there. But the water evaporating off our hiking clothes felt really good, and after they had dried off I was wishing for another dip!)
Beautiful swimming hole:
Going for a (very short) swim:
Views along the hike:
After this we were ready for more biking, and decided to head for Gallup, New Mexico, where we'd heard that a relatively new mtb area had been established, the Zuni Mountains Trail System. We camped off a side road near the trails, and in the late morning, after things had warmed up (we were a bit farther north, and a lot higher in elevation) we headed out for a ride. It was very different terrain than we'd been on, ponderosa pines instead of cactus, but it made for fun, easy riding, and we spent three hours enjoying the trails before heading home.
Britt on the trail, and me and Ryan at the overlook:
Just the photos, no blah blah
Ryan borrowed a 4-bike rack from a friend of hers, who turned out to be (small town alert!) the osteoporosis specialist I saw last Monday; on Wednesday afternoon we installed it onto our Sportsmobile, loaded up the bikes, food, and a lot of beer and wine, and headed south. We had dinner at the famous Cameron Trading Post, which still looked exactly the same as the last time we'd eaten there maybe 20 years ago, and stopped for the night in the National Forest near Sunset Crater. In the morning we got breakfast at a Village Inn in Flagstaff, after trying several diners which turned out to be closed for the holidays. Their heavy advertising for their pies worked on us, as we bought a piece of pecan pie (for me) and a pumpkin pie (for everyone else) for our desert Thanksgiving dessert.
On Thursday morning we drove to the Big Bug trailhead (where we saw a big bug, i.e. a tarantula, so no false advertising here!) and the three of them took off south. I drove back north a ways to the Dead Horse Ranch State Park near the town of Cottonwood to go on my own ride. (Fortunately I saw no dead horses.) I had planned to do a big figure-8 loop but decided to skip the first part of Raptor in favor of the singletrack Bones trail. It was loose and rocky and would have been more fun had it been 15° cooler - Arizona was "enjoying" unusually high temperatures - and so two miles in I took a connector and finished the uphill on Raptor, which was a bit easier. But I was out of shape, compared to my usual fitness level, and had to stop and rest and breathe before every steep bit, so I quickly realized I was not going to be able to complete the big loop in time to meet the others, and instead headed down when I got to the crossover of the 8. This was also more exciting than I really would have liked, with big drops down rock steps that taxed my psychological fitness - though I felt pretty good when I successfully negotiated them! (I should have taken some photos, but I didn't see any inspiring views.)
After a quick shower at the state park campground bathroom - the only shower any of us would have all weekend - I headed for the trail crossing where we had planned to meet up, only to get a text from Britt saying that they were running late because the trail had been harder than expected and they'd had a flat tire, so could I meet them at the "earlier alternative" trail crossing? It turned out that this spot was on a very rough 4WD road, the kind I hate driving on, and the last 2 miles took 20 minutes...but I got to where they were waiting, and we found a spot to camp just a few hundred feet down the road. There we had our Thanksgiving dinners, and pie for dessert; then we drank some wine, did some stargazing, and went to bed.
The BCT looked nice from a distance, but up close it's a TRAIL FULL OF NOPE and I'm glad I didn't ride it:
I wasn't looking forward to driving the rough road again, but Britt felt that the first day had taken a lot out of him and wanted to conserve his energy, so the next morning he drove the van to the place they had originally hoped to finish the first day, saving himself about five miles and an hour of effort, and saving me the nail-biting work of the 4WD driving. Then he set off down the trail and I waited for Ryan and Steve to let them know he was ahead of them (and to give them some extra water and chamois grease) before heading out for my own second day of riding.
This time I went southeast to Scottsdale, and the McDowell-Sonoran Preserve which was clearly an extremely popular destination, as the parking lot was jammed. It's a big enough area, though, that it never felt crowded, and it's really stunning - and exactly the difficulty level I am comfortable with right now, during my injury recovery. I rode the Brown's Ranch Perimeter Loop, and though I was a little worried I'd erred too much to the easy-boring side when it started out wide and flat, it soon turned to a lovely singletrack twisting among ocotillo and saguaro. In particular, the "High Desert Trail" portion of this route was super enjoyable, and the Balanced Rock and Amphitheatre formations were pretty and provided some welcome shade.
The others finished their ride around 5pm, a bit later than intended due to the difficulty of the terrain, a number of flat tires, and Ryan taking a spill into a prickly-pear cactus which required spine removal from her skin with tweezers and pliers. *shudder* After so much hard riding over two days, the consensus was that instead of riding on Saturday, we should go for a hike, so I drove the crew to a spot where we could camp near the trailhead of a hike Britt had heard about but never done. Certainly the name of the hike intrigued us:
Yep, we hiked to the Crack of Wet Beaver Creek! (The trail itself is the more boringly-named Bell Trail.) I had been nervous about doing such a (relatively) long hike, since the most I'd walked for since my injury was an hour, and it started hurting after fifteen minutes (though it never got super painful). But I had brought my hiking poles, which I ordinarily use only when backpacking, and Britt was carrying all our water and food so I didn't have any extra weight, and I managed the 7.5 miles roundtrip with only a few twinges!
Ryan and me as (inadvertent, I swear!) matchy-matchy twinsies:
The "crack" is a deep swimming hole between sheer rocky canyon walls, and it was a cool and refreshing destination on this hot day. All of us jumped in, though none of us stayed in the water long, because OMFGFREEZING! (We also went in clothed, since this is a popular hike and we didn't want to put on a show for all the other people there. But the water evaporating off our hiking clothes felt really good, and after they had dried off I was wishing for another dip!)
Beautiful swimming hole:
Going for a (very short) swim:
Views along the hike:
After this we were ready for more biking, and decided to head for Gallup, New Mexico, where we'd heard that a relatively new mtb area had been established, the Zuni Mountains Trail System. We camped off a side road near the trails, and in the late morning, after things had warmed up (we were a bit farther north, and a lot higher in elevation) we headed out for a ride. It was very different terrain than we'd been on, ponderosa pines instead of cactus, but it made for fun, easy riding, and we spent three hours enjoying the trails before heading home.
Britt on the trail, and me and Ryan at the overlook:
Just the photos, no blah blah
(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-29 04:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-29 04:39 pm (UTC)since this is the closest I have to a vehicle icon
Date: 2017-11-29 07:31 pm (UTC)Re: since this is the closest I have to a vehicle icon
Date: 2017-11-29 08:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-29 11:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-11-30 01:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-02 08:59 am (UTC)Such amazing landscape, I'm envious :) !!
And sitting here in my freezing apartment, it looks nice and warm, too, *mmm*. Maybe getting off my butt and continue working on putting my IKEA bed together will help…
Oh, no D:
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-02 04:15 pm (UTC)It was definitely nice and warm - too warm! I saw it was 91F (32.8C) on Saturday. Records for November temperatures were broken all over the southwest. It's still really nice here (a lot cooler, but sunny and pleasant) but it's supposed to snow, finally, Sunday night.
Yay IKEA bed!
I didn't see pincushion!Ryan but she showed off her red-dotted skin after. She did take a photo but it didn't turn out well enough to put up on Flickr. All of them were so scratched up I was happy that I picked the easy ride!
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-02 11:25 pm (UTC)-J
(no subject)
Date: 2017-12-03 01:46 am (UTC)