Dec 21, 2008

Alta Loop: South Mountain - Phoenix, AZ

It had been several months since I've been on Alta (South Mountain),and I felt the need for some chunk. Scotty proposed and lead the ride, and the other attendees included, Dgangi, Carmen, Lynette, DurtGurl, Zort, Jeffro and Su Ling.

It was a beautiful morning, as we rolled outta Scott's place at the wee early hours of the morning (about 10:30 am). His place is the north west corner of the park, so we entered the park thru a trail he built. We then bombed down Maz Delta, which was actually in pretty good condition. From there we kicked it on Bajada for about half mile before making the long climb up Alta.

The climb up Alta is never easy, but it went fast enough. For some reason, I wasn't feeling it on the ride down. I chalk my under performance up to a couple things: 1) I wasn't seeing the trail really well; my contacts we giving me grief 2) I was not feeling super ambitious 3) The trail was uber chunky. I actually walked a few sections that I had cleaned before on prior rides. Alta can be an unforgiving trail where even minor slip could cost you a major penalty. This saying has been coming up a lot lately, but "Choose Life" really fit the bill on this ride. The exposure is way big.

Anycow, everybody else was on, and I gotta ride a new section trail as we exited stage left at the end of San Juan Road.

Scott's wife, Bisera treated us all to an amazing apres ride feast.

Here's a vid of the day:


And Here's a Google Earth Tour of the Loop:


Quicktime Hi Res Versions of the Vids can be found here: Alta Loop & Google EarthTour: Alta Loop


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