Rolling on Desert Classic wasn't as mundane as I thought it was gonna be, but after all this Giant Reign X pedals really well. I was mostly interested in hitting the little jumps and drops that have started to appear recently on the Helipad DH.
During the climb up the helipad, the thought dawned on me that if I get home early enough from this ride, I could feasibly split from town and be down to Mt. Lemmon (near Tucson, AZ) to catch a afternoon ski session. So I picked up the pace, and railed the downhill. It was mighty fun having big travel and big rotors on this little bit of downhill. Woot!
I got back to the house about 9:15 am, and was out the door about 20 minutes later on my quest for a my second adventure for the day. I was nearing Tucson an hour and fifteeen minutes later, but then I spent nearly an hour crawling my way through to to the Catalina Highway, and then a little less than an hour going up the highway up to Ski Valley. Mental Note #73: Never follow Google.Maps route suggestion of getting off on Miracle Mile/Grant. Instead take the route I took a route home that seemed a lot faster and easier. Next time, I'll be rolling down Ina Rd/Skyline/Sunset/Kolb/Sabino Canyon. My return route even with heavy traffic on I-10 was 2.5 hours.
Ever since the big snow a few weeks ago, I've been wanting to cash in on the small window of skiing Ski Valley on Mt. Lemmon, which happens to be the southern most ski resort in the U.S.. I had an idea this place was going to be pretty dinky, and a half day is all it would take for me to entirely way to bored, hence the reason heading down for an afternoon session. Once I got there, it had exceeded my expectations big time. It was pretty small, only two double lifts, and just a handful of groomers. What really surpised me was the coverage was actually pretty good, the hill was actually pretty steep, the trees were spaced out really well, and pretty much everything 10' off the groomers were untouched. I mean really untouched. I don't know when the last snow was, but it had been a while yet nobody found the snow inviting.
On my first run down, I met up with another teledood, and showed me a number of really nice glades and gullies. The stuff over by the observatory was just a short 3 minute trek to get to and Powerline run to the south left us with just a 5 minute boot pack out.
Not to make this place way better than it is, I was pleasantly surprised what a neato excursion this place can be. The lines were nothing, and crowd control was a non issue. If the conditions are always like this, I could easily spend a whole day here.
I pretty much skied in a t-shirt and mtn bike gloves, until the last couple of runs when the wind kinda picked up and my gloves got wet. I dawned a jacket and heavy gloves, but the whole day I was pretty dang comfy.
I did get a little footage of my a.m. mountain bike ride, but I didn't realize I was having battery issues during my ski adventure. So I won't bother you with some boring footage, cuz even the mtn biking scenes weren't that entertaining.
Two passions in a day, what could be better. Well, hopefully one day I can link some Snowbowl and Sedona riding together. Shoot I think I might even throw some kayaking in the mix too.
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