Where the Streets Have No Name

My Anti-SOPA Post

2012-01-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

I don't really have a massive depth of knowledge about SOPA, but it would be a shame if my blog came under scrutiny for using songs on the videos that I don't have rights too.

This song is not a rebel song, this song is SOPA-Bloody-SOPA!

Canyon Lake

2012-01-07T16:54:00.001-08:00

Nice little paddle today with the Desert Mountain Paddlers.
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Dinked around the coves on the southern edge of the lake. Actually, this was my first time paddle around them, cuz I normally move on to bigger and better things, but this was actually pretty scenic stuff.

Saw a couple bighorn sheep ewes with their lambs a little ways of from the shoreline. Pretty neato.

Here is a video of the day:

Year End Video

2011-12-31T15:22:00.001-08:00

Here is my 2011 Year End Compilation Video.

verde river float

2011-12-31T15:21:00.000-08:00

Here's a short little vid of the New Years Eve float down the Verde.

Another Daily Double - Mountain Biking and Skiing

2011-12-24T18:24:00.001-08:00

Inspiration hit, as Chollaball mentioned, for Christmas Eve, he was heading down to Tuscon to pedal.

I thought to myself, heck I wanna ride down in Tuscon, but I also wanna ski. But wait, Ski Valley, the dinky resort at the top of Mt. Lemmon was up and running. A plan formulated that I would ride the lower trails in the Catalina Mountains (the trails not covered in snow), and then following the ride, I could head up to Ski Valley for an afternoon session of skiing. So I posted up a Tuscon MTB, that I wanted to find somebody who wanted to do a quick shuttle run on La Milagrosa. Luck would have it, Miracle (Chris) replied that he was in. Stoke was high, and I knew my plan would now come to fruition.

I met up with Chris at Le Buzz at 8:00. We then dropped my car off at the end of the Millie, and then we took his truck up to Prison Camp. We hit the trail at about 8:45 and man was it cold, but I had the perfect amount of layers for the whole ride. I didn't freeze in the shadows and didn't roast by the we time we finished up at 11:15. We the shuttled back up to his truck, and the lap was completed in 3 hours. Just as planned.

From there I head up the highway to Mt. Lemmon, got my ski boots on and grabbed my skis, and paid for my lift ticket just as they were discounting them at 12:30 (afternoon skiing is 32 clams).

The mountain biking was pure awesomness, and the skiing conditions were ...

...well, just okay, but hey it was still a day on the slopes (day 5 for the season).

Here's a Vid of the Day:

Skiing White Pass - Cascades

2011-12-18T17:07:00.000-08:00

Here is a little video of my weekend up at White Pass with the old krew.

Man, I miss that place.

I just wish they had some freshies.

When I get a chance, I will fill in a few more details of my trip. In the meantime, here is a video I put together:

Squaxin Island and Hope Island Paddle - Boston Harbor, WA

2011-12-15T22:53:00.001-08:00

I showed up at the marina a little before 9:00 am under typical December dreary skies. It was cool (about 40 degrees), and was expected to warm up more than that. The water was calm. The makings for a small epic day on the water in the on Puget Sound.
I did a full days rental of Eddyline Typhoon for about 33 clams, which was bad. In the past I had paddle the Eddyline Fathom, which is a tad bit longer and little less beamy. I think the Fathom paddled a little bit faster and easier, but I really don’t have any complaints about the Typhoon. For todays paddle, where it had long stretches on going straight, and not much tucking into tight spots, I would have preferred the Fathom. Both boats are really-really good, and I would certainly consider buying one.

Anycow, I split from the dock about 9:30 after getting my foot pegs all Feng Sui, and the my cameras all set up. It was a dreamy crossing of Dana Passage as the tide was still in slack mode. The outgoing flood wasn’t supposed to be all that big, which is good because I couldn’t remember what which way the current was going to flow around Squaxin Island. My counterclockwise loop around Squaxin took me up through Peale Passage. I like this island and Hope Island because there is barely any development on them, so it is a nearly perfect outdoor experience.

I didn’t look at my watch at what time I got up to the top of the Island, but I think it was around 11:30 or 12:00??? I still had about 3 more hours of tides, and it was nearly reaching its zenith. Just my luck, it seemed to be going against me. Rats, but it was all that bad. I honestly couldn’t tell the tide was hitting me until into a tight point about of the Island on my southbound leg.
I did spot a pair of bald eagles on Squaxin; just hanging out giving a screetch or two as I approach their shallow little harbor. I think the video I shot of them came out pretty good. Other than that, the only other really neato wildlife I saw was a stinking seal or two.

Todays trip wasn’t very demanding, so I opted to loop around Hope Island too. This also allowed me to get of the boat and stretch my legs out. Squaxin Island is covered with no trespassing signs, as it is part of the Squaxin Island Indian Reservation.

I noshed on some turkey-cheese-crackers at damp picnic table, and took in the sights and sounds of the sound.

I road the last little trailings of the outgoing tide back to Dana Passage, and by the time I got to the point of the doing the open water crossing the tide was slackening.

I pulled back into the marina about 2:30, and was purely satisfied with my little excursion.

Thumbs up to the mild tides, mild temps, and keeping dry under dry skies.

Here is a vid of the day:

When I make it back home, it is always a goal to get some paddling time in. For my third Boston Harbor Marina rental, I paddled around Squaxin and Hope Island (about 14.2 miles). Here are couple other trip reports from my Boston Harbor trips.

Snowbowl - Preseason

2011-12-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

I did a little preseason skiing up at Snowbowl, as I work on getting 'the sickness' back.

Actually it was pretty good day.

Pretty good snow on the groomers, but beware the off piste stuff has NO BASE.

It was really cold up there. Shoot, my camelback (with insulated hose) froze within 5 minutes of leaving my car. I had to tuck it into my shirt in order for it to thaw out.

I moved pretty slowly, as I started at the Sunset Chair and topped out at Agassiz Chair (11,500 vf). Both laps took about 2 hours.

The first lap, I came down Upper Ridge, and the second I came down the Spur Catwalk.

There were plenty of people up there doing what I was doing, and there was plenty of talk up on top of hitting the ungroomed stuff on the new runs. I didn't interject, but I did object, cuz I knew there was nothing in between the fluff and the rocks under it. I pretty much stuck to the groomers, and when I did flow threw the freshies on the side, I hit rocks. I actually hit ate it kinda hard when my ski hit a rock, smashing my knuckle on a boulder. That smarts. At the bottom, I heard over and over how the off piste skiing the utters had done was so not worth it.

I fear for the fools who try to get good turns in backcountry on terrain that has no base.

Picketpost/AZ Trail 11/26/11

2011-11-27T16:44:00.001-08:00

Ugh, that was a beatdown yestaday, and I am in pretty sorry pedaling shape.

I planned on bailing early, but the trail and scenery just got better and better. I survived on the fruits and vegetables I ate for breakfast, one apple (plus a slice of apple - compliments of Dag Nabbit) one stale package of cliff blox, one gu, a handful of scooby snakes, and two handfuls of peanuts. Oh yeah, that I and shorted my camelbak bladder out of a good 30 oz, cuz there aint no way I drank 100. I actually had to crack open my 5 oz safety reserve bottle. No real cramps, but my quads were really tight.

Utter than that it was an ahsum day on the trail. Good company. Outside of Sedona, I think the portion of AZ trail we pedaled was the probably the most scenic trail I've been on.

Thanks everybody for letting me shove the camera in your face.

Apache Lake

2011-11-24T16:45:00.000-08:00

So much to be thankful for, especially for the natural beauty that Arizona lakes have to offer.

I headed out to Apache Lake for nice little Thanksgiving day adventure out at Apache Lake.

I left my house about 5:30, and was paddling by 8:00. The waters were calm as the sun was coming up, but I as I experienced many times before that the winds usually pick up out of the east as the earth comes to life. Today played right into my plan, as I road the winds down the lake to the west.

I had a few things on my list to explore and see today:

1) See some bighorn sheep - CHECK
2) Find the canyon/cave/grotto at the Alder Creek Wash - CHECK
3) Climb up to the waterfall - CHECK (Well mostly, the spring wasn't kicking out enough water)
4) Find the Hermit's Cave - CHECK
5) See a bald eagle or two - DENIED to

I headed immediately to the north shore and had my eyes peeled for the sheep roaming around the bluffs. Before I knew it, I was at Alder Creek Wash (party cove) and I didn't see one stinking bighorn. I still had my hopes up and my eyes were still peeled.

I left my kayak down in the wash, and set out to find the canyon/cave/grotto, and I found it almost immediately. I saw a youtube video a while back that these doods shot of the canyon, and I've been intrigue to find it ever since. It was really kewl when I stumbled upon it. I found the trees that obscured it and the entrance to the cave had a RV sized boulder laying on top of two equally sized boulders. I was super excited at this point. The first room led into a second through a narrow passage. I had a scramble up to the third room and beyond that. I was a little on edge, cuz this seemed like prime mountain lion habitat, so I had my pepper spray handy the whole time. Really neato exploring. I did spot a few beer cans, so I knew this was pretty popular destination. I could have continued farther up the canyon, but opted to do that another day, and I didn't want to get hurt while traveling alone. I must have topped out about 100' vf, near the big obelisk that you see from the wash. There is no way to capture this grotto in video of neato it was, but I tried...

I scramble back around the top of the canyon, and then started my hike up to the waterfall. There was a little bit of water in the creek bed, but when I got up to the waterfall, and I could hear it on my approach, but the water coming down was hidden by the boulders. When the water is flowing from the spring, it is really neato, but today I was denied.

On my 1 mile back down from the waterfall, I saw a ram way up bluffs above me. He certainly saw me before I saw him. He was probably about 300 or 400 yards away, and about 400' up. The saving grace about my situation was that I wasn't forced to capture him on video from my boat. I am amazed at how stable the footage turned out, I also wish I was a closer. I am also amazed at how agile this bad boy was. I did catch on video, him scramble and leaping on the rock face above. Neato! On my way back down the wash, I spotted a second ram on the opposing bluffs. I bet these two have had some serious rutting battles, and I wish I could be there for that.

Once I got back down to my boat, the clouds were setting in, so I decided to call it a day. I did have one more stop, and that was at the old Hermit's Cave on the south shore. It is a couple miles west of Crabtree Wash, where I started my trip. This was a pretty neat cave. Inside, it a bulkhead built up and backfilled, for a level platform.

The only disappointment was not seeing any eagles today, but I did see a small tarantula.

Lotsa things to be thankful for in my life, but being in the moment, in such a neato place rules. I literally heard about 1 minute total of boat noise on the water, and that was about a mile away. The other thing I was extremely thankful for, was that my car started back up, cuz the battery was on its last throws. (It actually died the very next day).

Here is a video of the day:

Verde River (Novembe 19, 2011)

2011-11-21T13:13:00.000-08:00

Not much of a post here, but I just wanted to jot down a few notes on my trip down Verde River on Saturday.

The pedal up from Beasley Flats to White bridge (about 10 miles) took me less than 50 minutes (I was on my mountain bike this time). The other times I've done this, it has taken me about a little over an hour, on my wife's cruiser .

The flow was about 200 cfs, the highest I had done it yet. Still far-far away from being a crazy float down the river.

It took me 2 hours and 45 minutes to float the 11.4 miles from White Bridge to Beasley Flats.

Saquaro Lake

2011-11-11T17:16:00.001-08:00

Here is a little vid for today's paddle on Saguaro Lake:

Daily Double - Mountain Bike Ride and Kayaking

2011-10-25T20:01:00.000-07:00

What better way to follow a most excellent kayaking trip on Canyon Lake yesterday, but with a most excellent ride on South Mountain's National couple with a http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifselhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff supported (bike shuttle) float down the Lower Salt River.

Knocking out two schweet adventures in a day is something you can do in Phoenix.

I split from Pima Canyon about 7:00 as the sun was just coming up, and the temps were primo for pedaling.

I actually had a pretty good climbing day up National, except I for being held back by a worn out cassette.

The ride back down I was just "feeling it" and the flow was good. It was so good, that hesitated to leave good flow to go find good flow, but I wanted to get some more water time in.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

So wrapped up my ride, headed home, unloaded the mountain bike, loaded up my wife's cruiser bike, loaded up the WW kayak, change my cloths and headed out to the Lohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifwer Salt River. I dropped off my kayak at the Lot #1 at the top, then shuttle my car back down to Granite Reef Dam, then shuttled the bike back to the top.

I was on the water about 12:00, and the flow was of the river was good.

The temps were plenty warm.

On my way down I came across several raptors, and even an owl hanging out on the banks at Coon Bluffs. That was pretty kewl. I also saw the smartest heron I have ever seen. What makes this heron so smart? Well instead of getting spooked and flying down river about 50 yards like most stupid pterodactyls do, only to get spooked again, and again. This one actually double back and flew back up river. Never to be hassled by me again.

I saw a few horses, and the loads of big fish.
It took me about 3 hours to get down to Granite Reef, but I did spend some time getting vid footage.. I was pretty fatigued after 20 miles of flat water paddling yesterday, about 20 miles of biking today and 12 miles on the river today.

Here is a vid of the day:

And here are a few pics:

Kayaking on Canyon Lake

2011-10-24T18:39:00.001-07:00

I had they day off and wanted to get some flat water paddling in, so I headed out to Canyon Lake. I've paddled this lake several times now, and it never gets old. While I was out there, I did a little scouting on a future adventure, which I kinda comes to fruition soon.

When I got to the lake, there was just a hint of daylight, and I dig this in time of the day.

My plan was to paddle up to the top of the lake; all the way up to Horse Mesa Dam (well to the barrier at least). I also hit the all the usual coves on the way.

The paddling temps were the most comfy I've had in half a year. I did have to battle a little bit of a head wind all the way up, but the nice part of this lake, is that all twists and bends give me occasional protection. Then again, the twist and bends also funnel the wind at you too. I did have a tail wind for a good portion of my return trip, so my wager was a push.

When I paddled off the main portion of the lake into the canyon, I had my eyes fixated on the cliffs; scanning for bighorn sheep. When I rounded the bend to Beer Can Point, I saw some heads with horns peering down on me. The problem with these dang old sheep, is that they like to sit way high on the bluffs, so you can't see them when you are directly under them. The best view I had is when I was about 1/4 mile away, as the sat perched on a sheer 400' cliff. Cross that off the list of things to see for the day. I was denied on seeing any bald eagles, drat.

Today's paddle was a solid 20 miles, with lots of close quarters maneuvering in my touring kayak. This left me pretty tired when it was all said and done at 2:30 in the afternoon.

Here is a video of the day:

And a few pics:

Kayaking down the Verde River

2011-10-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

If been paddling a bunch lately, but I just haven't taken the time to document to post up my excursions.I did nice little self supported trip (bike shuttle) down the might Verde River on Sunday.This is pretty much the same trip I did here, so I won't cover the logistic details, utter than the river was flowing about 140 CFS.Here is a video of the day (please excuse all the vanity shots):
I also snapped a few pics with my phone, that was running a cheezy little camera app that simulates HDR.Here are some faux HDR pics:

Horses of the Lower Salt

2011-09-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics from this mornings paddle down the Lower Salt.

I think every time I been down the Lower Salt, I've seen the free roaming horses.

Today, I lost count on how many I saw, but there most have been about 30 soaking up the goodness of the river.

Here a few pics:

A day at Sunrise Lift Area for some DH

2011-09-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

I was feeling more inspired to ride than shoot video, but I did get a few clips. Nothing special.

Man, did it rain. I've been sweating the heat and wishing for rain all summer, and I got more than I wanted in relief. A 12:00 thunderstorm rolled through Sunrise, and we got completely soaked. The put a lightening hold on the lift for about 45 minutes.

Once they started the lift back up, cold and wet, we froze at the top. Then about an hour later, we go another storm. At that point I was super muddy on top of being cold and wet, so I called it a day at about 2:45. 6 runs in, but I certainly didn't ride very aggresively. Good bye Sunrise DH riding for another season. Booo!

Thanks to Gnar Gnar Tours for organizing the trip up and back.

Here's a littl vid of the day:

Verde River Kayaking

2011-08-27T20:17:00.001-07:00

I wanted to get some float time in, but I didn't have anybody to paddle with, so I did a little self supported shuttling up and down the Verde River (near Camp Verde). Mind you, river paddling alone is not recommended, but I felt pretty secure in doing http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifthis river solo.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I left my place in Phoenix a little after 5:00 am, and made it to The White Bridge in Camp Verde at 6:45. I quickly dropped off my kayak, paddle, PFD and Skirt down at the river, and secured it to a tree with a my bike lock.

Then I shuttle down to Beasley Flats via Salt Mine Road, 10 miles down river. I pulled out my wife's super awesome bicycle, and pedaled it the 11.4 miles back up to the top. I definitely set no land speed records on the way up. It took me an hour, but that included me taking the time do some staged video shots (all for my vanity). The difference in elevation from the top of the river where I put in and where I pulled out, is literally only about 100 vf, but the road http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifrohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifute had me doing about 1,000 climbing. This was due to two kinda big hills I had to go up and over. Oh yeah, and the temps were starting climb...

I got back to my kayak, and everything was still there. I locked up my bike, near the parking lot (up above). Then I set out down the river about 9:15. This were going pretty smoothly, and as planned.

I was hoping for more water in the river, but it was flowing below 70 CFS . The was even less water than the last time I came down the Verde a few months ago. I knew it was low, but I still had my fingers cross that a storm would pass over before I got up there. No such luck.

The river was really slow and the pretty boney in some place, but I only had to get outta my kayak once. And running aground there was just a mistake in not seeing the were all the water was flowing too.

The 10 mile paddle down the river took me 4 hours, and I had to do a great deal of paddling to do it in that time. I suppose that much paddling would've turned some people off, but I still had a pretty freaking good time. I was off the river by 1:15. It was crazy hot at that time, and there definitely thunderstorms crashing on the ridges on both sides of the river.

Oh yeah, the wildlife. I saw no alligators or lions or wildebeest, but I had a pair of osprey squawking at me, and I followed bald eagle down the river a couple of times. Actually that same eagle took flight just as I saw a doe and two fawn came into view. The deer were just chilling down by the river, and felt very secure in me floating by.

Good time, and I look forward to repeating this adventure, but I can only hope I do it with a little more water.

Here is a dorking vid of the day:

Baking Cookies in the Car

2011-08-24T21:16:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought I could be much more of a dork, I got and pull a stunt like this.

Temps were posta get up around 113-114 today so, I thought I give something I've been wanting to do for a long time, and that is back cookies in my hot car.

I grabbed a bag package of Toll House Brownie Bites, cut then I wouldn't haveta worry about them browning up.

I forgot to grab my tommeter to get a temp reading, but lets just say it was hot, and the freaking cookie sheet was hot.

I put 'em in at 12:30 and it was 107 outside, and when I pulled them out at 5:00 it was 113.

How'd the turn out. Well not exactly appetizing looking, but hell I didn't put much prep time in. They were surprisingly crisp.

I don't know how safe it is eat something like this, but I did chow down on a couple, and they were DONE!

Canyon Lake

2011-08-18T16:52:00.001-07:00

Maadjurguer and I headed out to Canyon Lake for ferociously hot paddle.

Here is a little vid of the day:

Jerry-on-Moe Trail - South Mountain - Phoenix, AZ 8/7/11

2011-08-10T18:33:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm still alive.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but July has been a very busy month.

Here is fun video of a group ride at South Mountain:

Another Lower Salt River Run (July 2nd)

2011-07-06T19:22:00.001-07:00

Here's another video float down the Lower Salt River, but this one includes Maadjurguer.

Most excellent group of 20 other paddlers from the Desert Mountain Paddlers group.

Here's a little vid:

Salome Jug - Tonto Nationa Forest - Arizona

2011-06-26T18:42:00.001-07:00

Since looking at this MTBR Thread posted up in May of 2010, I been wanting to the opportunity to do a little adventure into the Jug.
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BrettN put out the notice that he wanted to lead a group (along with his brother ScottN), and just like that we had 11 people who wanted to wade/swim the pools, hit the granite slides, and rappel (or jump) the final cliff.

Brett and I split from his house at about 5:15 and we knew it was gonna be warm day. We then picked up Dave and drove into Fountain Hills to meet up with the rest of the group (Mr.& Mrs. Chollaball, ScottN, Justin, Isaac, Alex, Markus, and Jessy).

We then set out AZ-87 and then took a right on AZ-188 and then took a left on A-Cross Road. I'd say we got to the lot about 7:30, and we started the 2.5 mile across and down to the top of the Jug at 8:00.

The walk down was pretty easy, but the concern of being blasted by summer AZ sun on the way out was heavy on our minds.

The top of the Jug was had a small pool of water with a plenty of green algea, and the marks on the rocks told me the water level for the typical pools was way down. But hey their was water at the beginning. Woot. Actually as we headed do the jug the pools got deeper and deeper. Suhweet!

The pink granite at the top was utterly amazing; a really neato contrast of colors up there.

The granite slide barely had a trickle of water, but fun none the less. I can't wait to shoot these with more water flow. We hit it very late in the year, as I'm hearing the optimal time to do this trip is April or May, but a wet suit is pretty much mandatory, as the pools will be cold because they don't get much sun to warm them. The pools were perfect temperature today for just shorts and t-shirt.

As we made our way down, the cliff walls got higher and higher and in some spots they got really narrow.

This is not a hike, it is canyoneering. Beginning canyoneering, but dangerous and having the proper equipment is a necessity. We all had climbing harness just in case the second to the last pool was to shallow to do the 25 to 30 foot cliff jump. Jumping this cliff can be a little hairy and certainly isn't for everybody. Rappelling is the only other option down. If you go here, please do yourself the a favor and bring your rope an harness.

The whole 5.8 (or so) trip took exactly 4 hours, not bad considering the size of the group.

Here is the vid of the day:

Paddling the Lower Salt River - Redux

2011-06-19T17:31:00.000-07:00

Here is this weeks version of the Lower Salt River:

Kayaking the Lower Salt River

2011-06-12T22:54:00.001-07:00

This morning, I met up with a the Desert Mountain Paddlers for a float down the Lower Salt River.
I split from my house a few before 6:00 am and cruised over to the Lower Salt River along the Bush Highway. I got to the meetup spot (Lot #1) before 7:00, and I quickly unloaded my boat, and then we shuttled some cars down to the Phon D Sutton Rec Area down river.

I didn’t look at my watch, at the official launch time, but I bet is musta been around 7:45 when we hit the water.
We had 21 people in our group, and there were two or three other groups launching about the same time. Believe me, this time of year it gets pretty crazy with all the tubers floating the river, but luckily we were off the river before the party animal crowd showed up.
This was my first time down this bad boy, and it I gotta say it was pretty fun. There are a few class 2 rapids, and the south side of the island (left channel) about 10 before the bridge really had a nice series of rapids. Nothing to hairy, but just fun fast stuff. The river was flowing a little under 1,500 cfs (Lower Salt – Below Stewart Dam).

It looks like they started releasing water down the river around the first week of May this year. Any cow, it was flowing good.

I’ve been working on my roll. It isn’t bomber yet, but I was successfully pulled out of all three of the rolls I attempted today. Woot! It also felt good to cool off without getting outta my boat. BTW, it was a perfect temp day. Probably about 85 or 90 when we finished up.

Again, I was so jazzed by this float down the river, that I forgot to check the time of when we pulled out of Phon D Sutton, but it musta been about 10:45. Not bad considering how big of group we had. I got home around 12:30, not bad for such a fun adventure so close to home.

Here is a vid of the day:

Sunrise Lift Area w/ GnarGnar Tours

2011-05-29T23:16:00.001-07:00

Today, I rolled on up to Sunrise Park Resort with Gnar Gnar Tours.

It was super nice not having to do the long drive up there, and it was certainly worth the 50 clams. This was opening weekend for lift area downhill riding, and it was also good to know that the lift tix were still only 20 bucks.

We split from Cactus Bikes in Ahwatukee at about 6:15 and we rolled into the lot at Sunrise at 10:45, so certainly took longer than driving up in a car, but it still pretty much ruled that I didn't haveta drive. Actually, this is the first time up to Sunrise when I wasn't the driver.

The stoke was high being here and knowing all the trails I wanted to ride were open. Things were a little dusty, but the high winds (even though we were on the leeward side) actually kept the dust from getting in my eyes when I was following somebody closely.

No major crashes for me or anybody I was rolling with. Woot!

One highlight was seeing a newborn elk that was yelping for its momma near the top of the lift. Hopefully the elk was reunited with momma???

Thanks GnarGnar Tours for the most excellent day.

Here is a little vid of the day:

Kayaking the Verde River (White Bridge to Beasley Flats)

2011-05-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

I joined this Desert Mountain Paddlers for a day of floating down the Verde River today,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif and it was way fun. I haven't done much moving water paddling other than a day ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif white water kayaking down the Cispus River in Washington and playing in the surf with my touring kayak in the Pacific
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I left my place in south Phoenix a little before 7:00 am, and easily made it to the meet up spot at the White Bridge put in on the Verde River (Camp Verde, AZ) for the schedule time of 9:00.

Ron, the Canoe Guy, was leading this paddle, and he was the first one there. Shortly after I showed up, the other two paddlers (Eric and Bill) arrived. We unload our gear and shuttled the cars down to Beasley Flats Rec Area (off of Salt Mine Rd). The round trip shuttle took about an hour, and we were on the water about 10:15.

Ron, the Canoe Guy, did an outstanding job guiding us down the river. He set the tone right for the paddle by having a short safety talk. His guidance was super helpful. Thanks, Ron.

Strange enough that we actually had rain in May???, but the water level was about 80cfs when were on it. I'm pretty much a rookie on find the proper channel, but the butt dragging was pretty minimal. And we actually had to paddle in the slow spots. There are several class 2 rapids, but was extremely tame. I only had water on my deck a handful of times.

I paddle in just a heavy lycra shirt and shorts, capped off with a pfd and bicycle helmet. I opted for a baseball cap halfway down the river.

The 10 mile float took us about 4.5 hours, as we pulled into Beasley Flats at 2:45.

Very pleasant day on the water. Mildly exhilarating, nice scenery, good company, and virtually nobody else on the river. That I don't get, how can there be so few people actually not doing this???

Interested in more AZ paddling adventures, check out Desert Mountain Paddlers.

Here is a vid of the day:

Mine Drop - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

2011-05-14T20:01:00.000-07:00

Chongoman lined up an ahsum loop today, which consisted of parking at the SoMo Enviro Education lot, pedaling up Ranger, traversing west on National, and then a really fun rip done Mine Trail and then rolled Gila Trail to San Juan Rd/Central to complete the loop.

We met up at 6:30 under sunny but warming temperatures. By the time we finished at 10:30 it was 90 degrees. Warm weather riding is here.

Anycow Stumpy29er, KennyB, Aaron,Durtgurl, ScottN, Cenobite joined in on this 12.5 mile loop. Pfft, 12.5 miles? The were pretty hard miles with about 2,500 vf of climbing.

At the bottom of Gila Trail, we took a peak into the Mine shafts.

Here is a vid of they day:

And here is a Google Earth Tour of the route:

Apache Lake Paddle (Overnighter)

2011-05-06T18:17:00.001-07:00

Spending the night in the backcountry at Apache lake is your typical Cinco de Mayo, but it is an ahsum way.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I split from work at 2:00 and was on the water at 4:30, as I left my car at Crabtree Wash (with Tonto Pass).

The humidity in the valley was literally 2% and the temps were over 100 degrees, but the lake felt slightly more cool, and the bump in humidity actually felt good with the breeze.

I was a little fatigue from busy work week, and paddling a loaded down kayak into the wind was not killing my thrill of being on water again.

As I made my way west along the north shore, I had my eyes peeled for bighorn sheep, but I finally saw some ewes way up on the cliffs above. The ones I spotted were just before Alder Creek wash. My video footage was pretty shaky due to the length I was throwing my zoom lense and tad bit of chop in the water.

I pulled into Alder Creek wash, and was surprised how low the water was. Obviously, I knew it was down lower than normal before I got there, but it was down to the muck deep in the wash. I wasn't sure where I was gonna park it for the night, but in the was wash was out of the question due to the mud and bugs.

Plan B was to head out to peninsula at the entrance of Alder Creek Bay. I found some suitable bivy spots, and parked it here for the night. By this time, it was 7:00 and I knew the sun was gonna be down about 20 minutes later. I scurried to unload my stuff and get my tent set up. A fire wasn't necessary, but I opted for one to add a little light to the situation. With the humidity so low and everything tinder, I definitely used some discretion and selected a pit down on the shore. The beers by fire certainly tasted yummy.

I had a close encounter with bobcat on Pinal Mt. last weekend, so just as a precaution against a bigger cat I brought small bottle of pepper spray. It was nice getting away from the all the white noise of the city, and it was neato hearing the sounds of everything zooming around me. The fish were jumping all night. I didn't know Apache Lake was know for its big hooters, cuz the owls were hootin'-and-a-hollerin' all night.

I rolled over around 4:30, a noticed the shooting stars I was seeing was switching to dawn. I got up about 5:00 to set up a camera for time lapse. I kinda wish I started later and let it go longer, but vid turned out 'just okay'. Definitely not worth the missed sack time.

I rolled outta camp about 7:00 and slowly made my way down to Horse Mesa Dam. The only real wildlife were some vultures kicking it on the shore. On my way back up the lake, I spotted the bighorns again, but they were even higher up than before.

I really took my time heading back up the lake, but I wrapped up my trip at 12:00.

No real new exploring, or a huge amount of miles(about 14 or so), but just a good time on the lake.

Here is little video of my trip:

And here is an interactive Google Earth map of the area:

Gold Canyon - Apache Junction, AZ - May 1, 2011

2011-05-02T21:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a little vid of the tour Gold Canyon ride

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - Highline and High on the Hog in Sedona

2011-03-20T13:53:00.000-07:00

Day four of AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - Highline and High on the Hog in Sedona.
After crushing down some pretty hard chunk, today was all about slicing up some nice red slick rawk in Sedona.

I met up with Tim and Gary over at Durtgurls house at 6:30 am and we carpooled up to Sedona, where we met up with the other flingers at the IGA Supermarket.

We had a pretty big group, the plan was to ride Highline and High on the Hog. I brought my little bike today, which my legs thanked me for. The pedal up Highline was super easy thanks to pedaling a bike that weighs 9 lbs lighter than my utter one.
Coming down was pretty dang fun on it to, but obviously I dialed back the aggressiveness a bunch because the tires were skinnier (less sticky) and not enough burly travel.

Both trails were in primo condition and the temps were perfect for riding. A little breezy up there though.

Our five hour tour was led by Zul and a couple other locals who are outstanding riders. Local knowledge is good to know. The best part of the ride was heading back around the eastside High on the Hog back to Chicken Point instead of heading west around the housing development.

Here is a vid of the day:

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - National/Holbert on South Mountain

2011-03-18T06:49:00.001-07:00

Day three of AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) - National/Holbert on South Mountain.
Today was another gnarlicious beatdown on Somo, as the Flingers met up the Pima Canyon Lot at 9:00 to go pedal some of the best South Mountain has to offer.

I hung with Maadjuergers group, but I had no real intention of doing portions of his ride, one because I new my legs would be tired from the days before, two I wanted to have fun in Sedona the next day. I think it is safe to say that I was easily on the heaviest bike, so I was going no where fast.

The group today consisted of Tor-y-Fol from the U.K., Chuckie33 from Mississippi, Marky-mark-and-the-funky-lunch from Chicago, CTuttle from Moab, Maad, Dgangi, Theorem all from PHX and myself.

Basically the route I did was up National and down Holbert, back up the road and return via National. A few utter crazies threw a few more punishing miles in there.

Here is a vid of the day:

Bug Spring & La Milagrosa (Tuscon, AZ) AZSF 3/17/11

2011-03-18T06:48:00.000-07:00

AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) Day Two – Bug Spring/La Milagrosa (Tucson)
Tor-y-Fol from the U.K. rolled on over to my house about 6:30 am, and we loaded up the bikes into my car for a two hour drive down to Tucson.

From there we met up with the other AZ Flingers (Ben-Jamin from Minnesota, Chuckie33 from Mississippi, Magro from PHX, Mad Max from Tucson, Steve from Tucson, Evil Patrick from Tucson and a few utter riders) at the usual meetup spot: Le Buzz.
We dropped off a couple cars at the usual spot at the bottom of Millie (Off of Snyder Rd - Corner of De Suzenu/Horsehead Rd.) and then we shuttled up to the top of Bug Spring trailhead.

I think we started the hike-a-bike out of the parking lot at 10:00.

I rolled this trail a month earlier, and there were patches of snow then, but none now. It was kinda warm out, but the breeze kept us from over heating.
We weren’t riding terribly fast, but the stops were short, so we made it to Prison Camp in about 1.5 hours. Bugs trail rawks.

Mad Max stashed some much necessary water at the beginning of Millie, so we filled our camelbaks, and we were off again to slay some gnar.

On the hike-a-bike up to the saddle on Millie, I dropped my sunglasses and since nobody behind me saw them on the trail, I figured it was fruitless to go back down to find ‘em. That meant heading down the trail with no eye protection. Oddly enough about 5 miles down Tor-y-Fol found a pair of cheap/nasty sunglasses that just so happened to colored silver, just like the ones I lost. (I ended up using there glasses all weekend.)

I had a little elbow dab on the ‘waterfall’, as I opted for the easy line to the left. No style points, but I got down without much thrashing.
The rest of the trail was a dream, but I was sufficiently fatigued when we got back to the car at the bottom around 3:00.

Here is a little vid of the day:

And here is an interactive Google Earth Tour of Bugs/Millie:

Hawes AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling) Kickoff Ride

2011-03-16T22:32:00.001-07:00

Here is the video for the kick off ride for the AZSF (Arizona Spring Fling)

We all met up at the Walgreens at the corner of Thomas and Power in Mesa about 5:00.

I don't ride Hawes all that often, but our 12.4 mile loop took us on a new (to me) trail know by the locals as TRW.

It was a really incredible sunset.

Here is the video of the 2.5 hour ride:

And here is an interactive Google Earth map of the area:

Hat tip to AZFreeskier for the GPS tracks and video soundtrack.

Gila Monster's Snow on the Superstion Mountains Slide Show

2011-02-27T19:49:00.000-08:00

Gila Monster Outback posted up a really great slide show of the snow that hit the Superstition Mountains.

K Trail - Apache Junction, AZ

2011-02-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

So freeskier46, mentioned that he was gonna head on over and ride K Trail in Apache Junction, so I decided to tag along. A few utter riders, RNC, Eda, Dave and Matt also showed up for a little tour of the trails.

During my 50 minute drive from Ahwatukee over to A.J. I heard the radio dood say that it was 39 degrees out. Luckily, it didn’t seem that cold, cuz I just had a long sleeve shirt and shorts on. I think by the time I got there at 8:30 it seemed have warmed up a bit. The clouds looked pretty cool, and I’m kicking myself for not getting a time lapse camera set up. Drat!

The plan was head out of the north end of the parking lot onto Lost Goldmine Trail, climb the little hill, then do a short descent and then at the left hand hair pin turn where the trail heads due north, we hoped over a few boarder rocks then jumped on a flat but worn trail that headed due south (no, I’m not gonna shorten this terrible run-on sentence). About 5 minutes of this trail, we tied into the jeep road that headed basically due east. From here, we pedaled for about 20 minutes as the jeep road head east, but also a little bit north towards the Superstoopid Mountains. And from here, we jumped back onto K-Trail, which some schweet-schweet single track. It basically takes you throw a bunch of twisty turns and washes. It generally heads south for a while and then curves to the west. It made so many twists and turns that I wasn’t exactly sure where we were going to end up, until we got there. The trail also crossed over the road several times, it is a tough to figure, but once we got done with ¾’s of the loop it started to make sense. Its not like I really don’t get lost or anything, cuz the natural landmarks are pretty easy to keep track of.

It had rained the day before our ride, and in the dirt spots, it was a tad bit mucky. It was kinda weird seeing dirt and mud in the desert. Despite the momentum killing mud, the trail was pretty easy to ride. I think our 10 mile loop only had about 1,000 feet of climbing, and easy climbing it was. We only climbed two or three small hills. We didn’t include Quartz Ridge, but there is actually a hill to climb there, I guess.

Despite the hammerfest XC feel of this trail, there are a few really, really choice gnar moments on it. Nice bolder rolls and big 5 foot drop (which opted for the non drop b-line on). I’d say this trail wasn’t made for big bikes, but fun could still be had there, but if you are a single speeder, you’d pretty much dig this trail.
The views really amazing. It is tough to beat having the majestic cliffs of the Superstoopid Mountains in the background. I don’t think I’ve ridden in a place with a higher concentration of saguaro cactus.

I think the six of us were out for about 4 hours, and who spend that much time riding a measly 10 miles??? Well, when you are having as much fun as we were session on stuff, the you’d understand.
My only problem was that I messed up my Jump Stop chainguide when I bobbled on some techiness, and I wasn’t able to get it set properly. So for half the ride my chain would fall off. Drat!

Here is a MTBR link for further discussion about this trail.

Here is a vid of the day:

And here is an interactive Google Earth map of the area:

Pinal Mt. Ski

2011-02-20T21:37:00.001-08:00

With the storm that passed through AZ yestaday, I need to see some snow, but I didn't want to battle crowds or the roads around Flagstaff. So I loaded up to XC skis to see if I could get a little repeat of last years most excellent short ski adventure on Pinal Mt.

I split from my house at 5:30 and was heading up the the FR 651 two hours later. Although I could see patches of snow up high I certainly couldn't see much. This kind of concerned me. The top of the hill was also socked in with clouds.

Last year, do to the low snow level, I parked really low. Not the case this time around, as continued up and up. I saw few patches of snow near the Sulphide Del Rey picnic area, but then as I head up the portion of FR651 that runs West to East (south facing exposure) for a few miles it was absolutely bare. I didn't count on snow being here, but I couldn't see any snow up higher, so the trip was looking like a complete bust. I continued on anyways, but about 1/2 mile below the Kellner Canyon TH, I the snow line just appeared, and once I got up the the TH there was several inches of coverage. Suhweet. Not only did I find snow, but it was nearing the top of the ridge, so no steep hills to negotiate with my XC skis.

The road was covered, and in primo condition for XC skiing. I was the first person up there, so no 4x4 tracks. It is actually pretty hard to ski with XC skis on a road that has been tracked by cars, cuz you need to use the whole road to kill speed and make turns. Double suhweet.

It was cold up on top, the winds were honking, and I was in the clouds the whole time, but it was all good.

My basic round was only to head up the road to Pinal Peak, which I did, but I ended up doing the Ferndell Loop up on top.

I'll need to calculate the full mileage, but I can just say now that it wasn't much. Prolly on only 5 or 6 miles, but it was nice to be in a snow setting again.

Here is a dorky vid, and please excuse my overload of ego shots, cuz there really wasn't much interesting to take pictures of

Bug Spring & La Milagrosa (Tuscon, AZ)

2011-02-11T17:34:00.001-08:00

Hide your women and children as on of those evil Bandolero's escaped from New Mexico to ride some AZ gnar.

At 8:30, I met up with RCC Le Buzz (the base of the Coronado Forest/Catalina Mountains), and from there his wife shuttled us up to the top of Bug Spring Trail. But first, we left my car at the bottom of La Milagrosa trail (Off of Snyder Rd - Corner of De Suzenu/Horsehead Rd.)

Hmmm, things didn't start off so well, cuz I accidentally had RCC's wife drop us off at the wrong lot, 1/4 mile below the actually trailhead, and then within two pedal strokes of pedaling up the trail, I snapped my chain. Double Drat!

RCC dropped a quicklink on my chain, and while we were dealing with this little mechanical, Sundog of Tuscon rolled up with some utter Tucson doods and to escort some utter riders from IMBA down Bug Spring. RCC and I tagged along with this group for, but split from them at the bottom of Bug's.

La Milagrosa did not disappoint Gnar was slayed, and 6.5 hours later we peeled ourselves off the trail. Should it really take that long to do 14.5 mile shuttle ride? Well yeah, when it has some sessioning, and 2,000 feet of climbing (total down was about 5,200 vf).

Here is a little video of the day:

And here is an interactive Google Earth Tour of our route:

IKEA Ordning Kitchen Timer -Panning Time Lapse 2.0

2011-01-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

Here's my latest kitchen timer - panning time lapse 2.0.

My utter one only last for 2 or 3 video, before it got buggy and would stop turning. It was unbalance, so when it would lean the mechanism would get caught.

Anycow, I went out on search for a better timer, so I went to the Amazon page and search for mechanical kitchen timers and stumble upon IKEA's Ordning kitchen timer.

What I liked about it was that is had nice flat surfaces on the top and bottom for attaching the Gopro quick mount and and a 1/4" nut on the bottom for a tripod.

It also looked fairly balanced, and didn't have awkward edges that would cause this fine piece of Swedish ingenuity from getting messed up in my bag.

It was cheap and it didn't look stupid. I did haveta go to deep into the bowels of the IKEA on a Saturday. That is messing with death, but I wasn't too bad. I easily found this contraption, and was out the door. At $5.99, you can't beat it.

I kinda with I could disable the alarm bell, but I aint gonna tear this thing apart just for that. I tried to do it on my last one, and the spring came unsprung.

I simply ruffed up the bottom and dabbed on some two-part epoxy and stuck on a 1/4" nut for the tripod mount. Then I took one of my spare quick sticky Gopro mounts and stuck that on. There! Project done!

This might possibly be the worlds worst time lapse video, but here's how it works:

Quadruple Bypass - McDowell Mountains

2011-01-22T18:14:00.001-08:00

Okay, allow me to start this ride review with a couple of apologizes.

1) Thank you everybody for allow me shove a my camera in your face. Your patience is much appreciated.
2) I didn't have bad gas yestaday, but rather that ripping sound was my tire buzzing on my front derailleur every time I my suspension compressed.:madman: Very annoying, I know. I need to figure out some sort of mod so my 650B wheels don't do this.

This was my fourth Quadruple Bypass in 5 year history of this social ride, and here is the MTBR thread.

Anycow, it was a great day out on the trail. And the clowns at the back of the bus had a great sufferfest. I've done a few of these, not to get all dorky on the scene here, but the encouragement of finishing is equally given as it is received. Well played to the 6 person trail sweeper team.

Big thanks to WaltAZ and CoyoteKis for the support at the beginning, middle and end. That was freaking ahsum, and thanks for waiting for our sorry a$$e$ to finish. Walt, you need to stop making excuse for not riding Quadruple Bypass, and CoyoteKis you will not be called 'Diesel' until you get back on your bike.

Utter than my tire on derailleur issues and one Tom29 having a case of the flats, us slow pokes really had no mechanical issues. Suhweet!:thumbsup:

Sure there many, many harder rides than this, but for a chump like myself, it is a pretty big challenge. To be honest, I felt pretty good all day; way better than last years edition. Shoot, I drank less than 150 OZ of water, only a 1.5 qts of gatorade, on snickers, two goo's and an apple. I had a nice burrito in pack, but didn't bother eating it (I need to go out to my car and grab it before some serious ickiness happens).

Great weather too, although I had my lungs from all the crap in the air. I had some pretty painful coughing fits after the ride.

Those two doods from Colorado just made us look silly finishing the ride in sumpin like 4:40, and big ups to the riders who did the Gnardruple. The Gnardruple doods started at the same time as everybody else, but caught up the stragglers at Bell Pass. And then there is Chollaball, the only dood that I know of that has ridden each 'Annual Quadruple Bypass Ride' who started half hour later than everybody else and caught up to us at Bell Pass. Guts awards to you all.
I know, I know the song is kinda of a trite anthem, but it seemed to touch on the emotional feel of the ride for me, at least.

Here's a vid of the day:

And here is an interactive Google Earth tour:

Here a some write ups of some my past Quadruple Bypass Rides

Bartlett Lake

2011-01-17T19:36:00.001-08:00

I rolled on up to Chollaball's place and we split from his a little after 8:00 to get some paddling in on Bartlett Lake.

This was my first time up there and it was another nice AZ lake. It has a little different feel compared to the reclamation lakes on the Salt River (Saguaro, Canyon, Apache and Roosevelt), because it didn't have the massive cliffs on the shoreline. The shoreline pretty neato anycow. Bonus, selecting a spot to get out of the boat is pretty dang easy to find, since the shoreline doesn't have the steep cliffs of the other lakes.

Chollaball and I parked at the Jojoba Bartlett Flat ramp, and pulled his tandem open-hull kayak off his truck. We were on the water by 9:30. Neither he or I have been on this lake before, so we didn't really have a clue what the features to see here were. We just decided to head north until either we ran out of lake or we ran out of time.

I'm not sure what the normal lake level is, but you could definitely see that this lake has held a lot more water than what was in the lake today. The water was pretty calm except we did get a little morning head wind. And this died down after an hour or so.

I was the stoker on the mighty tandem kayak, so my job was easy. I just need to keep paddling. It actually paddle pretty well for a rec kayak, but I could see the wind hampering things a little bit if it picked up much more than what we were experiencing.

We weren't paddling all that hard, but we managed to get a little of 8 miles up the lake in about 3 hours. And it even though we hadn't run out of lake, we were running out of time. We chowed down on some lunch before ripping back down the lake. About 5 minutes into our return home, we spotted a couple of otters cruising down the shore. At least we thought they were otters, the small glimpses of 'em didn't give any a good look. They were in the water the whole time so we couldn't see what their tails looked like.

The traffic on the lake was pretty mild all day, but we did get a few more boats in the afternoon.

Anycow we got back to the truck about 3:00, thus wrapping a pretty kick ass day on the water. A little over 15 miles of paddling aint to bad either.

If I roll back on up there, I think I'd park a little farther north up the lake and try to paddle to the headwaters of the Verde River.

Here is a little Video of the day:

And thanks to Chollaball's GPS tracking, here is an interactive Google Earth Tour of Bartlett Lake:

SoMo Perimeter Ride (South Mountain Trails - Phoenix)

2011-01-08T19:29:00.000-08:00

I did a major beatdown ride and the goal was to stick to the perimeter of South Mountain. I had a major problem in that I just didn't see a logical route from the central norther edge of the park to the northeastern corner of the park, where I started.

Here's the criteria I approached the ride:
6. Learn some new trails.
5. Big miles.
4. Get some good climbing in.
3. Avoid the gnar, cuz I was on my XC bike.
2. Stick to trails on the perimeter of the park.
1. Make it fun.

I met up with a dood from MTBR at 9:00, and he wanted to get some Desert Classic miles in and so starting at Pima Canyon was the natural spot to start my adventure-epic.

The dood I was with decided to turn around at the watertank on Desert Classic, so I pedaled on, and on I did.

I actually took 'secret trail' and tied back into Desert Classic. From there I did the hike-a-bike up Telegraph Pass and then more hike-a-bike up National. Actually, I pedaled up more of this section of National than I have ever before. Suhweet. Then I ripped down 620. I had only been down this trail once before on my big bike, I and wasn't all that impressed, but I kinda dug it this time. My goal of cleaning all the swithchbacks on 620 came to an end on the last tricky one; the one with a quick left turn followed immediately by a sharp right turn with a step. Drat. Anycow, I had an audience, but I still should have been a 'get'.

Now it was time to pick my way over to Bees Knees trail for another kinda hard climb. It was only about 600 vf, but it still sorta hurts. This trail gets a bad wrap as being a waste of effort and trail, but I really had a good time ripping down this trail. I've done both directions, and can easily say heading west on Bee Knees is the way to go. Dare I say the flow on Bees Knees trail is some of the best South Mountain has to offer. Twisty and swooping is the way I like it.

At the bottom, I skipped the Gila trail connector to National and opted for the short jeep road (with a hump over a small hill), easy but nothing to remarkable. I jumped on National but stopped at San Juan Rd. for a peanut butter jelly sammich, then it was on to the end of National.

At the end of San Juan Rd. I jumped on a trail that wasn't named, but directed towards 35th Ave. I had been on it before and this was my route back along the northern edge of the park boundary. My only concern about this trail was that the only I had been on it, we exited on 35th Ave, but I wanted to continue. This was a none issue, because as the trail Y'd, I took the high road and that turned into a jeep road. I had a low pass to get over, and this spit me out into a residential neighborhood on 28th Ave. I pedaled about a half mile of streets and ended up on Elliot. At the end of Elliot (near 25th Ave) I bypassed a couple barriers and ended up on single track again. This half mile single track took me to 19th Ave (South Mountain Access Area).

There I jumped on the first trail I saw that would head east over the ridge, and that happened to be Ma-Ha-Tauk trail, this was a little bit more of a climb than I wanted. It was terrible, and once I got up on top I the other lower option that would've spit me out at 'The Big Ramada'. I zoomed down the ridge back into familiar territory, as the Central Ave (inside the park) was visible.

I took a left on Max Delta for a quick jog to the road. Once I got to the road I headed up the the 'Little Ramada' where the Kiwanis trailhead was located. The thought had crossed my mind that could've done the hike-a-bike up Holbert, but I figured that at this point I was gonna be in survival mode, and knowing the road wasn't far away was comforting.

I know I'm capable of riding more of Kiwanis than I did, but I was starting to fatigue, and taking a stupid hard fall at the point was unnecessary.

I got up to the road, and now it was time for an easy spin on up to Beuna Vista, and at that point I knew I had enough in the take to take the longer wide way down, by going down National to Mormon Loop to Javelina to East Loop. Thus expanding the radius of my route.

National rawked as it always does, and everything else went as planned. I thought I was outta water when I was coming up the road, but somehow I managed a few more precious ounce on Javelina. And on total I had one apple, one PBJ sammich, and one liter of gatorade, and 100 ounces of water. Not bad for 8 hours out on the trail.

I climbed off of East Loop right at 5:00, and felt pretty dang good.

Sure doing this 33 miles with about 5,300 vf of climbing could've been done faster, but I wasn't sure how this loop was gonna work out, so I moved slowely in order keep something in the tank. The hike-a-bike also really speed the clock up too.

I didn't shoot any video, and I only took two pics, but here is a Google Earth Tour of my approximate route:

Here's an interactive Google Earth Tour of my route:

New Years Day Freak Show Ride - National (South Mountain)

2011-01-01T20:31:00.000-08:00

Chongoman organized a little ride up to the waterfall on National today to celebrate New Years Day. And in fitting course, we dawned our craziest duds. I rolled the ride in lederhosen. Guts award goes to Robert who ascended national with his duel crowned Turner in knee high boots with 5 inch heels.

Here's a little vid of the day:

The Bear ( El Oso Rd.)

2010-12-26T14:51:00.000-08:00

I was in need of little fitness ride, and I wanted to do a little exploring in the Mazatzal Mountains. I was also inspired by a ride Maadjurguer did last spring. My goal one day, is to pedal from the traverse the Mazatzal's from the Beeline Highway to Roosevelt Lake (Bee to the Bear and Back).

I believe there are a few trails open to bicycles in the area (outside the wilderness), but I'm not sure what the condition these trails are in. Here's a link to the trails that are open to mountain bikes in the Tonto Basin. If I get some beta that these trails are in rideable condition (not overgrown), then maybe I'll check 'em out.

The Bottom of El Oso Rd - Highway 188:
Roosevelt Lake in the background:

Anycow, I started my pedal up El Oso Rd. here, at 8:30, and ended up at the Lone Pine Trailhead around 12:00. It really shouldn't take this long to get up to this turnaround point, but I took my time once I got up on top of the ridge. I was also pedaling my heavy bike today, which was also unnecessary, but its all I had available. Plus I had the idea that there was gonna be some chunk on this road. BTW, the armor I packed up to the top did serve a purpose; it kept me warm on the rip back down the hill.

I'd say temps were in the upper 40's to low 50's when I started my ride at the 2,200 foot level. I was pedaling in shorts and just a long sleeve shirt, but I certainly wasn't cold on the pedal up. Once I got up on top of the ridge, about 3,500 vf higher in elevation, the temps were probably about the same as when I started(Lone Pine T.H. sits at nearly 5,700 vf).

Sitting on top of the ridge:

obelisk top of the ridge (near the radio tower):

El Oso Rd. (the bear), had absolutely no gnar on it. It was probably smoother than half the roads in Mesa. It did have an occasional water rut/bar. The biggest obstacle of this road, was the steep, steep grade. Even this wasn't as bad, as I had expected. Every single inch of this route, I could pedal. I had been looking at this road on Google Earth and did a few searches, and I thought it was gonna be chunky and to steep to pedal in some sections. Boy, was I wrong.

Once I got up on top of the ridge I turned onto onto Pigeon Spring Rd and decided to check out the Pigeon Spring and Loan Pine Trail-heads. This 2 or 3 mile traverse across the ridge had a few sections of ups and downs, so there is some elevation change. Pretty nice views though.

The rip back down El Oso was a hoot. It took me 45 minutes to get to the bottom from Lone Pine T.H., but most of that time was spent traveling across the ridge back to El Oso road, and fixing a flat tire. This was the first flat I've had in prolly 2 years; time for some new tires. From the top of the ridge to the bottom (about 8 miles) in reality only took about 25 minutes.

The big rotors on my 'barcalounger' were kinda nice to have, as I flew down the mountain. Even though the gravel road was in excellent condition, it wasn't totally brainless riding. It was fast, and slipping on the crushed granite/cinder was keeping me tame. At the curves of the road, the inside edge had a really nice berm to roll through.

Not the most inspiring ride, but the speed rawked, the views were of the lake and surrounding peaks ruled, and it was all new to me. I'm looking forward to rolling this again.

Here is a short and dorky little vid:

Here's an interactive Google Earth Tour:

Warpain Foothills

2010-12-19T11:53:00.001-08:00

So this morning I got up and wanted to get some trail time in, but I'm fighting off a little bit of a cold, so I wanted to keep it pretty easy and brief.

My plan was to play on the small foothills at the Warpaint entrance to South Mountain (these hills are found immediately at the entrance of Warpaint - a bit to the south).

I've climbed the foothills few times before, but generally ignore them because I'm usually out to pedal more XC oriented riding (Desert Classic). Sometimes though, I will pull out the heavy big travel bike for some rolling on DC and the Helipad, and will include the little loop that rips around on these hills.

The terrain up on these foothills have some established yet not recognized hiker trails, and the trail composition is loose-gravelly gnar on a steep fall line. Although it is a hike-a-bike to get up on top, I did find one primo line off the top that is actually pretty freaking schweet. If you click on the Google Earth Tour below, it is the loop in yellow, and the really fun line is the north section of trail (in yellow). The yellow line loop is exactly 1 mile, and as I was saying it is normally overlooked because of the nasty HAB.

I did a little exploring, but instead of doing the normally little hiker loop, I wanted to drop off the west end of foothill and and tie back into Desert Classic/Warpaint. There is a little bit of a rogue trail that doesn't get much use that I was able to connect to Desert Classic/Warpaintw with.

I'd like to know is how hard would it be to get Park Service at South Mountain to allow this section of trail to be established?

I suppose if these trail sections are on private property, then that would stop this discussion in its tracks right now. But it would be kinda kewl to have an established connector to the west between the foothill and Desert Classic/Warpaint.

HOLD THE PRESS!!! IT LOOKS LIKE THIS AREA IS OUTSIDE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN PARK/PRESERVE.

Below is an interactive Google Earth Tour (you need to have Google Earth installed and the trail photos may take some time to load up), and after the tour plays you should be able to navigate around the area and click on the pics.

Here a couple pics of my small adventure:

Goat Camp

2010-12-12T17:33:00.001-08:00

Did a little roll on out to Goat Camp with the boys.

The sun was out.

I broke a sweat.

OTB's happened.

No flats occurred.

Goat Camp (West of Phoenix) did not disappoint in white knuckle riding.

...and here are the results:

Javelina Trail - 12/9/10

2010-12-10T06:18:00.000-08:00

A dood I went to high school with, who is living in CO, came into town, and we managed to get a short roll in on Javelina.

Here's a short vid:

Snowbowl PreSeason

2010-12-04T18:45:00.000-08:00

I sauntered up to Snowbowl for a couple of preseason laps on the groomers.

My plan was to skin up from the bottom of Sunrise Chair which sits at 9,200 vf to the top of Agassiz Chair which tops out at 11,500. Heading up the groomers was easy except a couple the steeper slopes hadn't been groomed on my first trip up.

I ended up doing 2 laps, for a total of 4,600 vf. Turning around for the second lap was a test of will power. Ya see the snow was pretty horrid, it was nice that the cats had mashed down the snow on most of the runs, but it was far from groomed. Not that this what I was looking for, but early season conditions anywhere in the Kachina Peaks were gonna be pretty awful. Fresh snow on no base aint fun skiing.

Anycow, I had driving had I drive a ways to get to this snow, so I was gonna get some fitness in even if the turns kinda sucked. Not that I really do tele turns anyways, but today was strictly p-turning survival skiing.

Here is a little vid of the day:

And here is an interactive Google Earth Tour of the route (just click the play button and let it run out):

Inter-coastal Paddle - Stuart, Florida

2010-11-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

Picture taken from Gilbert Bar at the House of Refuge:

Being in Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday had me yearning for some time on the water. So I did a little search for kayak rentals in Stuart, FL., and landed on a really, really good company.

Paradise Kayak Tours, LLC had a most excellent tour planned for the day on their schedule, and it involved paddling around the inter-coastal waters of the Stuart Causeway. I booked the tour online the day before. I selected a single sit on top kayak.

I met up with Mike from Paradise Kayak Tours at 9:00 at the SE end of the Ernest Lyons Bridge

I was his only client for the day, and the set plan was to circumnavigate the Stuart Causeway and hitting up a few of the islands along the way. The route was going to be between 10 and 13 miles and take about 5 hours. And lunch was provided. Pretty schweet deal for 78 clams.

We hit the water sticking to the eastern shore of the spit (Gilbert Bar) that separates the causeway from the Atlantic ocean. Our first pullout spot was the the historical House of Refuge. Pretty amazing this house had been here since 1876. The spit here is only a couple hundred feet wide at this section, so I trotted across the road to check out the ocean for a while.

Our next stop was on an island across from the Sailfish Point Marina. Then it was back in the boat, and we paddle out of the inlet (near the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean). I kinda wanted to head out to the ocean and considering my experience in the surf was, but it prolly wasn't the best idea in the little kayak I was paddling. Besides, I didn't want to be a liability for Mike.

We turned around, an headed back into the bay. We ended up arching around a couple of islands near the western shore of the causeway. We then settled on a white sandy beach for some lunch. Mike had an awesome sammiches, chips and sodas for us. Nom, nom, nom, nom...

The weather had been perfect all day, as the temps were in the upper 70's and the winds were pretty much nonexistent. The winds were expected to pick up in the afternoon, so after lunch , we looped another island and called it a day at that point. And as expected the winds started to pick up as we returned. We were off the water by 2:00.

I normally like doing these tours on my own, but Paradise Kayak Tours pretty much rawked. I would highly recommend this company.

Good stuff. The bad stuff is that I shot some really good video of the day, and actually cut and edited the footage, but I dropped my computer and lost pretty much everything including all the footage off my Gopro camera. That was the camera with all the good shots. Very frustrating and disappointing, cuz that video was awesome.

I did have a little bit of footage on my other camera, so I did put together a little bit of a video:

For this video I ended up using a new (to me) screen grab video recorder for the Google Earth Tour recorded video shot. Fraps pretty much rawks. I had been using Cam Studio and has worked very well, but after reinstalling Cam Studio after I got my computer up and running it just wasn't working right. Fraps is so nice for pulling the Google Earth Tour, because I no longer need to run the tour in ultra slow mode and then speed up the video file in my video editor. My old workflow with Cam Studio I needed to create a tour that would take about 20 minutes to play otherwise the clip would be really, really choppy.

Here's an interactive Google Earth tour of our Stuart Causeway:

Apache Lake - Alder Creek Wash (redux)

2010-11-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

Last June, on hot Arizona summer day, I got up early and paddle down to Alder Creek on Apache Lake for a little exploration, so today I decided to do a little repeat of that adventure.
This time, I gotta sleep in a little bit later, so I didn't leave my house until 5:00. Two hours later I was parking at Crabtree Wash up at Apache Lake, and on the water by 7:30.

I had my eyes peeled as I scanned the north shore for big horn sheet, but I was denied any real wildlife this trip. Well except on my hike I stumbled up see a coati in a box canyon, but he bolted before I get my camera out.

Like past trips out on Apache Lake the morning winds were a little more than a gentle breeze, but it was blowing in the direction I was heading. As for the temps, it was probably about 45 degrees when I started paddling, as the sun was just coming up.

As I made my way down to Alder Creek Bay I heard exactly one boat, and he was behind me about 2 miles. So I pretty much had the west end of the lake to myself.

Once I got down to Alder Creek Bay, I noticed the lake level was down a slightly from my trip in June, and it kind of surprised me considering my October trip Canyon Lake had the highest water I had ever scene. The Apache Lake level was hardly noticeable, but it was down about a foot or two.

From Alder Creek Bay, I tucked my kayak away and grabbed my cameras and trekked up the creek bed, which soon transitioned into a box canyon. Really neat stuff. It didn't take long before I was up the creek high enough that the was actually water pooled up, and being fed by a spring.

I rambled up to the waterfall, and man is this a beautiful place.

I spent a lot of time filming the hiking portion of this trip, actually a little bit to much as I used up all my batter on my wide angle gopro camera. Drat! I wish I had enough battery for the waterfall, because the footage from my utter camera just can't capture the majesty of this place.

Once I came back down to my boat it was about 12:30, and it was very comfy out and the winds were done for the moment. So chowed down on some cold pizza and took a little mid trip siesta. After my nap, I noticed a few puffy white clouds were billowing over the cliffs above. No concern at that moment, but once I paddled out of Alder Creek Bay, into the main portion of the lake, I look back at where I had come from, and there were some big gray clouds quickly building on Four Peaks. Four Peaks, as the crow flies is about 7 miles away from the Alder Creek Bay. These clouds did concern me, 1) with a rain storm comes rain. Me getting wet isn't that big of deal, but considering my car was parked in a wash prone to flash floods was a little unnerving. 2) With a rain storm usually comes big winds. And about halfway back to the car the winds went from calm to really strong. Not only was it a headwind, but it was strong enough for white caps and chop. Drat. I hunkered down and paddle hard for about 45 minutes and kept looking over my shoulder for the storm, which was counter intuitive, considering the lake level winds were blowing from the east down the lake, but the peak level winds were blowing the clouds in from the north. I caught a few rain drops, but the storm was moving across from where I was a couple hours prior.

I got back to my car about 3:30 and felt secure no significant moisture was gonna land where I was at. Phew.

What a great day, and an adventure I look forward to repeating again, and again.

David Grayson said, "Adventure is not outside a man it is within."

Here is a little video of the day;

If you have the Google Earth on your computer, here is an interactive map of my tour route:

HOORAY!!! WE REACHED 20,000 VISITS!!!

2010-11-09T09:06:00.000-08:00

Nothing to see here, but I just wanted to note that Where the Streets Have No Name has had 20,000 visits since it was launched in June of 2007.

Well, I need to keep it real, so I also say that most of the those visits were from yours truly – heeheehee.

The number one search item that lands people on my site, are my Blue Ridge Reservoir trips.

I also get a number of visits from people linking from mtbikeaz.com thanks, mtbikeaz!

Crossposting to MTBR and other forums have landed people here too.

I also must note that lotsa hits from people looking for info on Six Shooter trail and Pinal Mt. in Globe, AZ. Oddly enough the strangest misdirection to my site, are people searching for the faux picture of guy in Globe with a giant rattlesnake. I’ve got a couple posts of Haboobs (desert dust storms), and that gets an unruly visitor or two.

Thanks everybody for checking in!

And thanks everybody for putting with my atrocious writing. I rarely go back and proofread that stuff I kickout here. The purpose for this blog is for me to show a little video, and to have somereference links so I or somebody else can recreate the adventure. You wouldn’t believe how often I go back to post to find pinpointing location of a parking lot on a google map from a trip I’ve already have done.

Safe travels and no matter where you go, there you are.

National Coast to Coast to Coast - South Mountain.

2010-10-30T15:03:00.001-07:00

Met up with TurtleGerl, Chongoman, Justin, and Troy (L. joined us for the roll up Mormon Loop) for a little Coast to Coast to Coast action on National.

We Split form Pima Canyon on out 25.5 mile tour de gnar a little before 7:00, and we finished up around 1:30. We skipped the last couple of flat/lowland miles of National - we took the road back up to Buena Vista.

Sure the pace was slow, but it was social riding and I was moving as fast as I could with my heavy bike.

With the bad also comes the good when pedaling such a heavy bike on National. The West of of the park isn't traveled as frequently, so the trail condition wouldn't be considered being 'buff'. The loose and rotten rock still was no match for my Giant Reign X.

Here's dorky little vid of the day:

Two Thumbs UP - Tom's Thumb x's 2 - McDowell Mountains (October, 16, 2010)

2010-10-17T12:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I set out for a little solo ride up in the McDowell's promptly at 7:00 am from the Gateway Access Area trailhead.

My plan wasn't absolutely clear, because it depended on how ambitious I felt once I got up to Tom's Thumb.

With my heavy bike, it took me two hours to finally get to the pass at Tom's Thumb, but I felt good as I conserved my legs on the climb up. Since I wasn't absolutely destroyed, I decided to run down the North McDowell Access trail to see if I could find a connector to Pemberton Trail. If I was able to find Pemberton, I could make my way back into the lower east side trails I was already familiar with.

I bugged a couple of hikers who had climbed up the North McDowell trail to see if they new of a connector, but said it wasn't possible. I knew there had to be a way, but I just had to get a look of the terrain below and talk to the right person.

The ride down the North McDowell trail, was actually pretty fun. The recent heavy rains only inflicted minimal damage. The crushed granite cinder on the trail was slipper but fun. I was glad I had big phat tires and big rotors.

Once down at the bottom of hill, in the North McDowell Access Area, I could clearly see where I need to be (on Pemberton), but I just need to figure out the route to get there.

I bugged one more hiker in the lower lot, and he said that I am on the jeep road I need to be, and if I keep heading east down the road I find cow gate and a trail head. About 1.25 miles and slight change in directly I found the connector, and it was very intuitive.

The connector trail is Rock Knob trail and from the gate to Pemberton was less than 3/4 of a mile. It spat me out at the fun section of Pemberton. From here, I headed due south for less than 2.75 miles to Coachwhip Trail.

Once I was on Coachwhip I had to make a decision on what route to take back over the McDowell Mtn ridge to the Scottsdale side??? I still had some legs left and when I transitioned from Pemberton to Coachwhip, so I decided to do the totally unnecessary and painful hike-a-bike back up the East End Trail back up to Tom's Thumb. It was about 10:30 (about 3.5 hours into my little epic ride).

It took me another half hour to get to East End Trail after I pedaled Coachwhip to Windmill Trail.

The climb up East End Trail was miserable. It took me a solid hour of push my 37 lbs bike the 1.3 miles back up the steep-steep hill. The 7" fork put my handlebars at eye level, so I struggle to leverage the monster of bike up the hill.

East End Trail got hammered pretty hard by the rains, and it come away looking very good. A number of deep trenches down the middle of the trail would make riding down it not very fun. The steep and sharp swithbacks are ordinarily fun, but I don't think it would be all that entertaining with the new trenches.

Once on top I rested for while in the shade of the two leaning boulders. At 12:00 I hoped back on my bike and ripped down the Tom Thumb trail, and that was a hoot.

I got back to my car at 12:45, and was thoroughly fatigued.

I didn't GPS the route, but I'd estimate it at 22.5 miles and about 4,000 vf of climbing.

Here is a Google Earth interactive map tour I put together of my route:

Here is my blatant rip off of Maadjurguer Tom Thumb photo composition.

Sitting on the Pemberton Trail looking west at the Mcdowell Mtns.

Here are a couple trail marker signs:

And here is a big phat diamondback rattlesnake that gave me a few ticks with her tail as I rolled by.

Canyon Lake Paddle

2010-10-11T21:10:00.001-07:00

My annual Columbus Day paddle was cut a little short due to an appointment I had to get back into town for.

I also had kind of an early start as I pulled out of my driveway at 5:00 am and was at the Palo Verde boat ramp at 6:00. 15 minutes later and after I parked my car up in the upper lot (trailerless cars have recently been ticketed in the Palo Verde lot for parking in the trailer area) I was paddling on a serene lake.

I took my time shooting video and dinking around with new camera mounts, so my mileage wasn't all that high. I did manage to get up to Crucifix Canyon before the turnaround clock gave me signal it was time to head back. This little inlet has got to be one of my all time favorite spots I've ever been to.

With a slight wind at my back I paddled from Crucifix Canyon back to the car in 45 minutes, and I was off the water by 11:15.

Here is a little video I shot (drat! I just noticed I have 2011 as the yeaar):

Desert Classic Gnarcissism

2010-10-11T21:09:00.000-07:00

I spent some time putting a little video of my riding around South Mountain. Please excuse the vanity shots, as I tried to make it as interesting as possible.

Click to play

Gopro HD 360 View

2010-10-02T20:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a little vid of a little 360 view I did with the Gopro HD cam:

And here is a little panoramic sunset time lapse. The clouds are chased out of the desert.

Sedona

2010-09-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a little scorcher of a ride in Sedona:

Sunrise 9/04/10

2010-09-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Another day at Sunrise, and it was a blast.

We had a huge group up there ripping the trails.

AZMikey and met up at DurtGurl's house and split PHX around 6:00, and rolled into the Sunrise Resort about 10:00.

This time we went up through Globe and the Salt River Canyon, and I find this route a little more scenic. But since I was driving, the scenery was a blur.

The trails were nice an tacky, but riding in such a big group led so a few more pile ups compared to last weekend. I fell of the 'log rolls' two times in a row, and pretty much wrote that feature off for the day. I was trying to do it faster, but this led to me eating it a couple times.

At the very beginning of Sticks and Stones, a fellow rider to a spill, and I ended up bailing myself. But where I went down, I landed on a some bee's and ended up getting stung twice. I didn't stick around to see if I landed on a nest or what???

Mental Note #73: I kinda like taking the little bypass route around Pine Top/ Show Low by taking the 77. It may be a tad bit more mileage, but was way more scenic and a lot less traffic.

Great day!

Here is a little vid of the day:

Sunrise Park Resort: Greer, AZ

2010-08-28T20:44:00.001-07:00

SurfnDav met up at his house at 6:00 am and split from there via the Payson route for a little downhilling at Sunrise Park Resort.

I'm not sure what took us so long, as traffic was pretty mild, but we didn't get to the Sunrise Parking Lot till about 10:00. It was nice to be back in comfy temps again. A few puffy clouds were floating by, as threw on the armor and crash helmets. The lift tickets for a the day were still $20, which is pretty much a bargain in my opinion.

The trails were in super great shape, it didn't take us long to figure out that Chutes and Ladders was pretty much our favorite run of the day.

I was riding my Kona Stinky, and the travel was sufficient for these trails, but the handling (weight and brakes) were a struggle all day. I was reluctant to roll the really big boulders and drops with this thing, cuz once it starts toppling over, it is hard to stop. It is that heavy.

We didn't beat ourselves up to much, and managed to get 6 laps in.

Our last run, we had short rain shower that made the trails tackicious.

Great day up there. We each had a couple small spills, but not carnage and no painful landings.

Here is a link to my last trip to up there: Sunrise 2009

Here is a short vid of the day:

Here is another video of just helmet cam footage:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

Click to play

Goat Cirque - Mt Rainier

2010-08-15T21:17:00.003-07:00

Big Brotha Steve and I split from his house near Olympia, around 5:30 and ended up to the Summerland Trailhead inside Mt. Rainier National Park a little after 7:00. We also picked up our backcountry overnight permits at the park entrance. Parking is at a premium, hence an early start.

There we met up with Kurt and Matt. Eric joined us around dinner time up at our bivy spot.

Our beginning elevation was about 3,600 vf, and I think the approach to Summerland was about 4.5 miles. The elevation at Summerland was about 5,800 vf, and the snowfield we marched up into Goat Cirque was about half mile up the trail from Summerland.

We marched up to the top of Goat Cirque, but avoided the steep headwalls. We had a primo bivy site, that sat around 7,000 vf. We arrived at our bivy site around 1:30, and it was pretty comfy and sunny. Here, we drank some beers, and just enjoyed the scenery.
Itching to get some turns I strapped on the skis for couple before dinner runs on the short patch of snow near out site.

From here we just waited for the sun to go down, and have the meteors rain down on us. I woke up several times during the night and each time I fixed my gaze on the shooting stars ripping across the clear and star speckled sky.

I'd say that I packed exactly the right amount of food and clothing for this trip, but still my pack remained light. And even when I woke up in the morning I wasn't cold.

We all pretty much rolled out of bivy sacks around 7:00 were marching up the Frying Pan Glacier at around 8:30. The 2,100 vf climb up the glacier to Whitman Crest (9,100 vf) was easy, and only took about an hour and a half.

The five us kicked it on the prow for about an hour, while we gazed the massiveness of Mt. Rainier and all the points of interest. Lil Tahoma sat immediately in front of us, and across the glacier (miles away), we could see climbers returning from summit climbs back to camp muir, Sherman Camp wasn't far away either. The panoramic view was one off the most terrific sights ever scene.

We strapped the skis on, and ripped down the Frying Pan Glacier, and then back to our camp to grab our overnight gear for the our return back down the mountain.

What an amazing trip, and I truly miss this mountain.

Here's a vid of the weekend:

And here is a high res version:

If you happen to have Google Earth, here is a link to interactive tour of our trip (once the link is open, hit the "Play Tour" button on the upper right hand side):

Here are a few pics:

Big Brotha Steve at Summerland with Rainier in the background:

Kurt at Summerland with Rainier in the background:

Me at Summerland with Rainier in the background:

Climbing Goat Cirque:

Chilling at the bivouac:

Panaromic view at dusk:

Perched at Whitman Crest:

Woodard Bay - Puget Sound: Olympia, WA 08/13/10

2010-08-15T21:17:00.001-07:00

I flew up to Olympia from the desert, and I headed out to Boston Harbor for little paddle out on Puget Sound. I made a reservation a couple days before for the Eddyline Fathom kayak, by calling the number on the Boston Harbor Marina website. I got to the marina a little before they opened at 8:00 am, and did a full day boat rental.

My plans were to paddle NE out of Boston Harbor and ride the tide out of Dana Passage to Henderson Inlet then paddle into Henderson to Woodard Bay. I timed the tides just right, as high tide was at 8:30 am, just as I was heading out. And then I killed enough time in Woodard Bay to let the tide ebb, and then slack reverse to push me back to Boston Harbor. Low tide was about 2:45, which means I had plenty of time to take it all in at Woodard Bay.

My first stop on my way out was Fishtrap Loop, as I wanted to hit this up before the bay emptied. The water out at in Dana Passage was calm, when I left, but this little cove in Fishtrap was even more peaceful.

I continued on with my journey, and Dana Passage was in full on flood mode, and aided me as it pushed me out. The rip tides were actually pretty mellow; double bonus.

Once I approached Henderson Inlet, the temp change was creating rather breezy conditions. No worries though, as breeze actually worked for me; itt pushed me into the inlet which had tide I was slightly bucking against. The chop in the water built up a bit, but the Eddyline Fathom, took it very well.

As I approached the long train pier used to bring logs out to the ships back in the day, I could see plenty of seals sunning themselves on the log booms. I tried to keep my distance, so I wouldn't disturb 'em.

I really took my time getting to the facilities of the Woodard Bay Natural Resource Conservation Area. Here is Wikipedia description of the area: Woodard Bay Natural Resource Conservation Area.

I ate lunch napped for a little bit on the bench of the picnic table located on the Chapman Bay side (northern bay of the conservation area). This was very peaceful, and necessary as I was exhausted from a very late night flight into Washington from Arizona, and I wanted to kill some time, as I waited for the tide to change.

Rested and fed, I jumped back into the boat and headed around the spit of land, where the massive train trestle crossing over Woodard Bay came into view. I picked my line and stuck to it as paddled my boat through the pylons of the trestle. Once I passed under the bridge, a big phat bald eagle came into view of the atop big fir tree located on the western shore of the bay.

I paddled up to the bridge where Woodard Bay Rd passes over. The water was still flowing out, especially under the bridge. This is where I turned around. The was midway point, which was about 7.5 miles from Boston Harbor Marina.

I dinked around the bay for a little bit, and decided that I had killed enough time that I would finish the last little ebbing tide of Henderson Inlet, and by the time I got back out to Dana Passage it the tide would be slacking and changing into my direction.

I don't recall exactly what time I got back to the marina, but it was a little after 3:00. I really moved at a snails pace, but my paddling was less than strenuous as I road the tide in and out of the bay.

I was great to be back on Puget Sound again. Here is a link to my last paddle on Puget Sound - Hope Island

And here is a vid of the day:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

If you happen to have Google Earth, here is a link to interactive tour of my trip

Here are a few pics:

View from Boston Harbor Marina:

Eddyline Fathom sitting in Fishtrap:

Dana Passage:

Pylon's of Henderson Inlet:

Geronimo - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

2010-08-07T17:07:00.000-07:00

Today was Chongoman's Annual roaster ride, and guess what? The weather was actually tolerable. The were a few thunder clouds floating around the valley as we met at 5:30 am at Chongoman's house. I saw a couple of flashes of lightening, up on the hill, but it looked like things were moving off.

It was dry where were at in but as we started climbing up Javelina trail, I counted 23 raindrops, and that was it. We were left with big phat cool clouds.

Once we had climbed up to the resting spot on Mormon Loop trail, we could see a ferociously dark cloud dumping big time on the sky scrapers of downtown Phoenix, but we could see this storm moving away from where were at. Spared!

The 18 or so of us made it up to Buena Vista lot, and prepped ourselves for a most delicious drop down Geronimo trail. The torrential monsoon rains were not kind to the trail, as it left it a little rutted and chunky. Was it fun? SURE WAS!

National - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

2010-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Did another ride another ride SoMo today with a crew of MTBR riders. The temps have dropped, and the cloud cover was a savior, but the humidity was OH-pressive.

Pretty nice crew this morning. You can read about how this ride materialized, wrapped up here MTBR Thread.

Here is a little vid of the day with a very special ending:

National - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

2010-07-17T13:13:00.001-07:00

Did a little sufferfest ride up Javelina then Mormon Loop then National to the pass, then back down National and Javelina.

ETSX Rider was in town visiting his folks, and we met up with BrettN and Chongoman at the Javelina Trailhead. It was about 6:15 when we hit the trail, and although the cloud layer provided some protection from the sun, it was miserably hot and humid.

We moved pretty dang slow, but it was nice social ride pace.

No carnage or mishaps.

Here is a little vid of the day:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

Click to play

Apache Lake/ Alder Creek Wash/Brown's Cave

2010-06-25T17:40:00.001-07:00

I took a mental health day yesterday, but in Phoenix this time of year you need to get up at an insane hour to get some outdoor play time in.

I got up at 3:30 am and was on the road at 3:45, as I had my kayak stuff all loaded up the night before. My plan was to drive up to Apache Lake (two hours away from my house in Phoenix) and do little paddling and hiking exploration.

I was on the water at 6:00 am, and the temps weren't all that cool. Perhaps the temperature was 80 degrees, but it was fairly gusty. Luckily the wind was gonna be blowing me in the direction I wanted to go, and my hopes were that as the temperatures climbed and settled that the winds would die down for my return trip. And they did.

After reading about this trip report about Brown's Cave, I decided to see if I could duplicate this adventure. Instead of heading staying on the south shore of the lake, I darted across the lake to the north shore, anticipating that I'd might catch a glimpse of some Big Horn Sheep, and I was rewarded almost immediately. Directly across the lake form Crabtree Wash, where I put in, and down about a half mile, I spotted a single sheep way, way up on the bluffs. The cliffs I was paddling under were very tall and steep, so the sheep got out view very quickly. I continued west on down the north shore, and about 2 miles down the lake I spotted another big group of sheep between Ash Creek Bay and Alder Creek. They're were several up pretty high, but then I notice one a couple hundred feet above me. The horns weren't very big on these sheep, and there were a number kids running with this flock, so I suppose the bigger ones were all ewes. I believe the rams and ewes run in separate crews until mating season. Although the I didn't get a very good view of the horns on the first one, it was very big animal, and very well might have been a ram. I am easily amused, so I thought this was pretty kewl. I think I know what to spot these animals now. In the future I will look for isolated cliffs, that will offer the flock some habitat protection, and then I will scan the the hillside for a big white hiney moving about.

At 8:00 I arrived at Alder Creek Bay, it shouldn't have really taken that long, but I took my time and shot a bunch of video.

From there I tucked my kayak way, and started walking up the dry creek bed. I was kinda creaped out because a rattlesnake could very well be hiding behind each and every rock, but I didn't see one on my entire hike. Phew!

According to the Brown's Cave trip report I alluded to earlier, I need to head up the wash and about .5 miles I would run into a waterfall. Although the wash started off dry, about .1 mile up from the lake there was actually water coming down, and the amount water coming down the creek built up in volume as I climbed up the wash. I was actually surprised to see water, considering it has been a very, very long time since we've had significant rain. The wide and dry river rock turned into really, really kewl box canyon that had narrow rock walls. Very scenic and confining.

I made it up to the waterfall,and I was rather impressed. You can actually go behind the waterfall. Neato!

I ended up finding a rope to the west (left hand side) of the water fall that I used to climb up to the top. I continued up the creek and followed the rock cairns, which were kinda helpful as the was splits into two about .1 mile past the water fall. Stick to the left. The instructions I had said the cave was about .3 mile past the waterfall, and I found the barbed wire fence on the east side (right hand side) of the creek bed. And as mentioned, it really isn't a cave, but more of an overhang.

The hike up took me couple hours, as I took my time to carefully climb up the boulders and shoot some video. Coming down took me about 45 minutes. I ended up gaining 400 to 500 vf of elevation above the lake. The lake sits at about 1,900 vf and some of the surrounding peaks are as high as 4,000 vf. And the nearby Four Peaks, climb as high as 7,600 feet.

I got back to my boat, and ate some lunch before paddling the 5 miles back to my car. It was pretty hot, but not entirely miserable. When I actually pulled back into parking lot, it was 1:00 and was well over 100 degrees.

Very fun adventure.

If you have the Google Earth on your computer, here is an interactive map of my tour route: Apache Lake/Alder Creek Wash

Here's a vid of the day:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

Click to play

If you have the Google Earth on your computer, here is an interactive map of my tour route:

Telemark Chute - Kachina Peaks (near Flagstaff, AZ)

2010-06-19T19:02:00.001-07:00

Maad likes to celebrate his birthday this time of year. I don't know why??? But he does, so he organized a little trip into the Kachina Peaks (near Flagstaff) via Lockett Meadow. We started off our approach on our mountain bikes around 8:30. We had our skis and boots attached to our packs. Well Maad had it easy, as he stashed his skis in the Inner Basin beforehand.

I believe it was 10:00 by the time we got to point on the Inner Basin Trail where we had to abandon our two-wheelers and start hoofing it up the hill. And it was 11:00 by the time picked our way up to Weatherford trail, at the base of Telemark Chute.

We then boot packed up about 500 vf to top of the strip of snow, and then strapped on the skis for the slide down the way we came. There weren't to many options for coming down, as the strip of snow was no wider than 40'. It was actually a fun little slip down. Once we got back on to Weatherford Trail, we walk up the trail about 100 yards and found the another gully with a strip of snow to ride back down on. After I filmed Maad and Jmoney heading down I slipped on my fourth turn and went into an uncontrolled slide and couldn't arrest. Well not until sliding about 20 feet and bowling over Maad who was positioned right in my path. He worked as a pretty good break.

We then pick out islands of snow back down the hill, and then it came to pulling off our skis. The walk back to the bikes was took about 15 minutes, and then another 30 minutes of biking back down road, we were back at the car.

Yeah, it was pretty boney, but we still skied in June in the beautiful state of Arizona.

Here's a vid of the day:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

Click to play

If you have the Google Earth on your computer, here is an interactive map of our tour route.

Canyon Lake Scoot

2010-06-05T20:02:00.000-07:00

I fired up the Vespa for an early morning roll out to Canyon Lake/Tortilla Flats this morning with a crew of doods from the Scooter Club of Metro Phoenix & Prescott Area Scooter Club.

I met up with Glen, Jeremy, Steve, Necro23 at 6:00 at Joe's Farm Grill in Gilbert, AZ and we proceed to roll north to the Superstition Highway (US 60). From There we rolled through Apache Junction to the tie into Apache Trail (US 88) for the schweet, schweet curviness out to Canyon Lake. Par for the course, we had followed a boat slowly being hauled to the lake on our trip out to the lake, but our return home was smooth going.

The intention was to get a little breakfast at the Lakeside Restaurant and Cantina, but we showed about about 20 minutes before they opened (8:00 on Saturdays), so we jumped on our machines and cruised up the road to dink around Tortilla Flats to kill some time. We took some pics and shot some vid, then proceed back to the restaurant for some sustenance.

Par for the course, we had followed a boat slowly being hauled to the lake on our trip out to the lake, but our return home was smooth going.

Super fun little excursion.

If you have the Google Earth on your computer, here is an interactive map of our tour route. Google Earth Canyon Lake Scoot Tour

Here is a dorky little vid of the ride:

And here is a higher quality (Quicktime) version (note: it will take a few minutes to download):

Click to play

Sorry Jeremy, I didn't realized I dropped Steve's name in a second time instead of yours in the credits.

And here is a link to some blog entries of my last kayak trip on Canyon Lake.

Pinal Mountain Shuttle Day

2010-05-31T20:03:00.001-07:00

Did a little shuttle day on Pinal Mt. (Globe, AZ) today with some peeps for MTBR.

We met up in Globe at 7:30 and were basically bombing down the trail at around 9:00.

We had something like 12 riders with us, and I did three trails with 'em. First we did Ice House, then Freight Train, then finished up with Six Shooter.

Here is the shuttle pick up spot for Ice Canyon Trail and Freight Train: Kellner Canyon Rd

And here is the shuttle pick up spot for Six Shooter Ice House Canyon Road - CCC

Here is a short vid of the day (sorry the colors are kinda blown out):

And here is a slightly better quality quicktime version (note it'll take a minute or two to load up):

Click to play

Tom's Thumb - McDowell Mtns May 16, 2010

2010-05-31T20:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a little video of I put together Chollaball rolling on Tom's Thumb in the McDowells:

Here is another rather recent post of Tom's Thumb.

Mingus Downhilling

2010-05-08T21:57:00.001-07:00

I've been wanting to ride Mingus Mt. (between Prescott Valley, Jerome, and Cottonwood) for a while now, and thanks to the invitation Helimech and others I jumped on the opportunity.

Some how we packed ten bikes and ten riders into the truck and rolled just about everything up there. Helimech did a great job of linking up several different runs together so shuttle progressed easily. Being my first time up there, it was just a blur of fun. From what I recall, we did 28th street, 110 to 533, Madness, and finished up with Maverick.

110 and 533 had a couple short uphill sections, but was probably my favorite runs. Madness was super steep and sketchy, due to the loose rock (like riding on marbles). Then Maverick was a super long run that took us from the hang glider launch had into the town of Cottonwood, and it had elements of all the the trails we road earlier.

Fun stuff, and it was nice to be in the trees again.

Here is a vid fo the day:

A higher quality Quicktime version can be found here (it'll take a few minutes to load up):

Click to play

We wrapped the day with riding some 'skinnies' and here is a short video of that:

A higher quality Quicktime version can be found here (it'll take a few minutes to load up):

Click to play

Black Canyon - Colorado River: April 29th and 30th, 2010

2010-04-30T21:25:00.001-07:00

I've been meaning to get up to the Black Canyon section of the Colorado River, since I flew over Lake Mead last fall. I took a couple of mental health days, and coordinated this little excursion into the canyon with fellow adventurer, Maad Jurguer (check out his blog).

Maad hadn't been in a kayak before, but I knew he would have no problem settling in and digging up the river. I also knew his fitness level and endurance would come in handy as we battled the river current and wind heading up the river. Well done, Maad!

We split from Phoenix at about 6:45 am (4/29/2010) and blasted through Wickenburg and Kingman, and ending up at Willow Beach, AZ (our launch site) a little before noon.

As for the weather, well I was a tad bit concerned. Ya see, AZ had some very high winds, the day/night before, and we actually had some some snow flakes hit the windshield about 10 miles before Kingman (4,200 vf). The clouds that was spitting snow wasn't very big, and we would be paddling about 3,500 vf lower (the river level is about 700 vf). As we loaded up our kayaks, there was a rather dark cloud sitting over us, that kicked out 17 rain drops. Yes, I counted each and every one. I knew this cloud would pass, and once it passed, I also knew the gusty winds that were kicking up white caps (20+ mph winds) would also subside. The cloud was still over us as we launched (about 1:00 pm), and we were getting a little bit beat up, so I instructed Maad to follow me over the Nevada side of the river where it was little more calm, and to hug the shore. About 10 minutes later the cloud moved off, and the winds died dramatically. We still had a rather strong breeze we had to paddle against for most of the day, but also had nice moments where the waters were calm. Event though the wind was in our face, the canyon is narrow enough that water never had a chance to get choppy.

Launching From Willow Beach:

Oh yeah, what was our destination? Well, my goal was to head the 11.5 miles up to the Hoover Dam. And I also wanted to explore the features likes the numerous volcanic hot springs. Here is a high resolution/interactive Google Earth Tour I put together of our trip (once you have the Google Earth Plugin, just hit the play button in the upper right hand corner): Black Canyon Google Earth Tour

Our first feature we spent some time checking out was Emerald Cave (about 2 miles up from Willow Beach - Arizona Side of the river). It is important to hit this cave at the right time, because proper lighting is crucial to catching the brilliant emerald green water at its best. Since it was in the afternoon when we arrived, the sun was positioned optimally so the super green and clear water was glowing. It was awesome. I'm glad we hit it up when we did, cuz the next morning (a little before 10:00), it wasn't nearly as stunning.

Emerald Cave:

Thanks for the pic of me, Maad:

Also in the area was a plank trail built into the cliffs above, used for accessing the cable cart necessary for maintaining the channel marker/meter station on the Nevada side of the river.

Maad and I trudge up the river, and it became apparent that although we were paddling really, really hard, we weren't moving up the river fast enough. It was a tad bit demoralizing not seeing the shoreline pass by, compared to effort we put into paddling. The swirls coming off the the rocks in the water really showed that the current was a lot stronger than I had anticipated. Couple the river current with the headwind, there were spots that would drift us backwards at 4 knots if we stopped paddling. We were only gaining about 2 miles per hour.

We only stopped a couple of times to crawl out of the kayaks, and really limited our time out of the boats. So although we stopped at Arizona Hot Springs (about 8 miles up/ marker # 60), we didn't spend much time exploring,because it was already 5:00 and we had further to go. We chatted it up for a couple of minutes with a small canoeist group that was bivying there for the night, and then we proceed up to Palm Tree Hot Spring (nearly 11 miles up/ almost a mile past marker #62 - Arizona side). Just before we got to Palm Tree Hot Spring we save about 8 or 9 desert Bighorn Sheep hanging high up on the cliffs (Arizona side). Neato! Back at Willow Beach, there was a bald eagle getting buzzed by some pesky ravens. Other than some vulturs and obligatory osprey, that was the only wildlife we say.

Thanks for pic, Maad - Bighorn Sheep:

I was kinda hoping to stay at the Palm Tree Hot Spring, but once we got there it was pretty in hospitable. While Maad explored the area on foot, I continued up river for a place to stay. I made it nearly to the new Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, before concluding there was any place up there I would choose to stay. The cliffs were pretty rugged. By this time, it was after 6:00 pm, and I knew it was pretty important to find a nice campsite.

Thanks for the pic of me, Maad (notice the bridge?:

We turned the boats around, and headed back down the headed down past marker # 62, and noticed a nice sandy wash on the Nevada side. We investigated further, and it looked primo. This was in the Boy Scout Canyon Hot Spring wash. This was a perfect single tent area about 5' up on the bank. This 5' became really important, because as we were warned that the river level will go up an down dramatically during the night, I knew we wouldn't want to be in the wash itself. Actually, we had to carry the kayaks up the sandy wash about 100' from from the river, which I felt was a safe distance. We got settled in, and ate some food and guzzled a half case of beer, and around 9:00 pm we looked down at the wash, and low and behold the river was nearly to the kayaks. OMG! The river had silently come up way higher than I had expected. We had scraped our feet through the sand only to see wet sand under it, and we did on the bank we sitting until we had scratched in a dry dirt water line. Our tent/camp was at no risk, so we pulled the kayaks up to the site. Phew! No Worries, now. Mental note #74: don't count on any firewood on the river.

Thanks for the Camp pic, Maad:

After a demanding day heading up river, I was excited head back down river the next day. The night was calm and peaceful, and the temps were perfect. Before we split from our site, Maad and I explored the Boy Scout Canyon Hot Spring. We could feel that the water trickling down the was was warm, and it got warmer as we headed up the canyon. We walked up a couple hundred yards and found some really warm pools. Although clean (except for signs warning of harmful amoebaes) and inviting, we actually skipped the soak.

Maad in the Boy Scout Canyon Wash/Hot Spring:

We left our camp at about 7:30 am, and absolutely flat water. Which made for a perfect mirror of the canyon walls. Sweet! Soaking up in the peaceful water while it lasted was nice, because I new as soon as the sun warmed up, the morning breeze would pick up. And it did, but just as it was in our face the day before, it was now perfectly at our backs. I guess our wager for river and wind was an absolute push, which is all I could ask for.

Maad loading the kayak back up:

Serenity Now!!!

We flew down the river, paddling the 10 or so miles back to Willow Beach in 2.5 hours. We barely paddled. We pulled back into 10:00 am. I must admit, we should have spent the day exploring, but had to get back into town.

Here is a Joshua Tree:

Here is a nice little map that notes the features on this route: NPS Black Canyon Map

This was an excellent trip, and I am excited to spent more time in the Black Canyon. My one and only disappointment, other than spending more time here, was my 'go to' video camera had a dead battery. I must have clicked on when I loaded up the car, and it was in a mode that wouldn't allow it to auto shut off. boo hiss. So I was relegated to using my Palm Pre mobile phone, Go Pro helment-cam, and stealing photos from Maad for documenting this trip.

Here is a quick play vid of the day:

And here is a High Quality (Quicktime) vid (it will take a few minutes to load up):

Click to play

If you happen to have Google Earth, here is an interactive tour of our route:

Thanks to Desert River Outfitters for the beta on this trip

Alta/ Bee Knees

2010-04-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Did little pedal last Sunday, no video but here is little Google Earth Tour of the route.

Go ahead play the tour on up in the right hand corner:

Alta Bees Knees Gnar Tour

Goat Camp Out n Back 04/17/10

2010-04-18T19:11:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, our 10 rider crew did a little pedal in the White Tank Mountains (west of Phoenix). We did the basic out and back route, and saved the gnar for another day. Freaking, dgangi did it twice.

Other than camera shots, there were no real stops on the way up. It was a pretty casual blistering pace, but I knocked it out in about 1:45. Not bad considering I was on my big bike. Which was totally over kill, but did come in handing for the 1/4 mile rawk garden at the bottom. I thought they took the all of gnar out at the bottom, but thank goodness, its not all gone yet.

Here's a vid of the day:

Here is slightly higher quality version of the video, but it'll take a couple of minutes to load up:

Click to play

Lockett Meadow

2010-03-06T18:41:00.001-08:00

Everyday in the BC is a good day. The road up was total snow; well except prolly a 50 yard section about half mile from the car.
I would started outta Snowblow, but the forecast looked like the weather was posta bonk with super high winds. I made an audible when I saw a huge cloud sitting on Humphries to be on the leeward side of the hill.

My skins glopped really bad today, so I didn't make it all the way up to base of Snowslide. It didn't help seeing two parties ripping down doing an IB traverse, while I struggled up the trail. It was pretty clear to the east of the peaks, but the clouds were ripping over the ridge, and when the black clouds moved over, I called it a day.
... See More
I figured out how to get to the Pumic Mine gully, that made the exit really nice.

Picketpost Mtn - Superior, AZ

2010-02-27T18:33:00.000-08:00

Had a nice little roll one Picktpost yestaday with surfndav. The drive my place in Phoenix to Superior was just about an hour. Here is link to Epicrider's map of the area: Picketpost.

Real nice trail, except for I kinda led us off in the wrong direction from the beginning. I wasn't paying to close attention as we took the jeep road up for the first mile or so.

Mental Note #73: Take the trail to about 20 feet to the east of the gate, not the trail behind the gate. I shoulda looked at the map before I hit the trail.

Mental Note #74: If you skip Mental Note #73 you can tie back into the trail when you the jeep road takes you down to the creek. Just follow the creek DOWN (not up) about quater mile and you get back to the trail.

We were a little bit concerned about getting rained on, so we turned around when we got to Telegraph Canyon Rd.

It was uber green out there, and it was nice to see a little water in the creeks. We stopped and checked out a nice little grotto, perhaps this was Trough Spring???

I was actually kinda tired when I pealed myself off the trail. It wasn't all that demanding, but I was pedaling a my 37 lbs Reign X.

Here is a little vid of the ride:

Sedona Hi on the hog

2010-02-19T20:53:00.001-08:00

Click to play

Daily Double: Mtn Biking and Skiing the same day

2010-02-06T20:14:00.001-08:00

I rolled outta bed this morning and decided to take a light easy ride out the helipad, but this time I thought I'd bring the heavy bike.

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.

GoPro Chesty Testy - National: South Mountain Park

2010-02-04T20:44:00.000-08:00

I picked up a little accessory for my GoPro Helmet Cam: Wide today for some new angles.

The Chest Mount Harness will allow me to film the forward action along with the my handlebars/hands to give a little more perspective on what is going on during a ride.

Other than some aiming issues, it worked great. The added bonus is that I can monitor the camera far more easily than when it is mounted on my helmet. I no longer need to yank off my helmet to turn the camera on and off.

I will either grow my belly bigger or add spacer behind the mount to point the camera up a little bit. Easy fix.

Here is short vid of me rolling down National with the Chesty (be patient, I maxed out the bitrate, so buffer might be a bit slow):

Quadruple Bypass: McDowell Mtns - Scottsdale, AZ

2010-01-31T19:47:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday was the fourth annual Quadruple Bypass. Not a race, not a benefit, just good old fashioned social ride. :thumbsup: And beat down at that. Actually a handful of people upped the ante this year by doing the Gnardruple Bypass (the inclusion of Tom’s Thumb about 4 more miles and 1,200’ more than the tradition route done in the past).

I stuck with traditional route, and suffered plenty . Some would say 33 miles, ‘no big deal’, but you couple this with 6,900 vf of climbing and you’ve got some fatigue issues.
I’d say close to 50 riders hit the trail that beautiful Arizona morning, but the bulk of the people (say 30) split from the Basha’s Grocery Store parking lot (Scottsdale, AZ) lot at 8:45. It was pretty dang comfy out; prolly 55 degrees. I was in a t-shirt and shorts, cuz I knew the temps would get close to 70 in the afternoon. Which it did!

- Route: Up Windgate Pass (first Bypass), down the backside and over to Bell Pass(second), down Bell, over Paradise to Quartz/Lost Dog/Old Jeep Road to Sunrise, up and over Sunrise (third), up the jeep road to Promenade/Sonoran and Dixie Mine, Dixie Mine to Coachwhip, and up to Windgate again (fourth), down Windgate and back to the cars.

Some riders actually train for this punishment/enjoyment. I did not, and I paid the price. I hadn’t cramped in years, but about 5 hours into this 8.5 hour journey they started to kick in. Backcountry skiing the past couple of weekend, meant I had acquired a different type of fitness than required for this type of sadism. I also ran outta water about an hour earlier than expected. Luckily there was the refill spot at the midpoint of the ride. Once I got rehydrated I started to feel pretty good again.

The group I pretty much stuck with was 11 riders strong, most of which I had ridden with before. However, most of the group hadn’t done this ride before, and for some these were completely new trails.

More details of this ride can be found on this thread: [URL="http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=575769"]MTBR Quadruple Bypass[/URL]
Just like portraying how steep a hill is on film, it is also difficult to show what a pain in the butt this ride is.

Here is a little vid of the day:

Cross Country Skiing On Pinal Mt. - Globe AZ

2010-01-24T18:02:00.001-08:00

Over the past year, the thought had crossed my mind that I could feasible ski on Pinal Mt. With the big snow that blanketed pretty much everything over 4,500 feet, I knew this was just the window I had to make some tracks.

Being I live only 1.5 hours from Globe, I didn't split from town till about 7:00 a.m., and I was kicking by 9:00. I parked my car here, which is just past the left hand turn from FR 55 onto FR 651. Where I parked, the elevation was about 4,500 vf. This is as far up I as dared to take my car, since there was about 4" of snow at this level. I wasn't there first car up to drive on this snow, so the driving was pretty easy.

My plan was to cross country ski up the road as far I as I can get in 4 hours, then turn around. The snow on road had been mashed down pretty good by 4x4's and ATV's, but although fresh snow looks nice, I was moving up pretty good. I also knew that once I got to the tree line, that I would probably be the only human tracks on the road. And I was right, because there was tree after tree down across the road. I had to go over or under about a dozen trees that were knocked down due to the last storm.

As I got higher, so did the accumulated snow. It didn't long before I wash tracking through 18" of powder. Luckily it was a blue bird day, and other than the first 15 minutes I was in a t-shirt all day.

Once I got to the deeper snow, my pace slowed down. The downed trees didn't help, but certainly added to the landscape. I was hoping to have kicked up more miles than I did, but my 4 hour mark came at the when I was passing the Sulphide Del Ray Camp/Picnic Site. I continued just a little farther to the saddle where the road Madera Peak splits from FR 651. This is at 6,000 vf feet, so my the total climb up was 1,500 feet and 5.25 miles up.

The view from here was terrific. A small amount of clouds added to the contrast of the hyper blue sky, while the snow line on the south aspect of the hill was wasn't far below me.

It had been years since I had strapped on the cross country skis, and I had forgot how light and easy going they were. Heading down was nice, as I clung to the track I put in during my ascent. Things got kinda sketchy below when I got back down to where the trucks and ATV's had created an ice rink. I ate it several times over the last two miles back to the car. The lack of boot rigidity, no edges on my skis, standing on a 2" wide plank and skidding down the ice makes for a very clumsy ride. The tire tracks left me with very few options of killing my speed as I swished down the hill. I landed pretty dang hard a number of times.

My 10.5 mile/7 hour tour wrapped up at 3:00, with me walking down the last 100 yards to my car, since the snow had melted out while I was out having the time of my life.

Heading up to Six Shooter Trail, I've pedaled up this miserable road road several times before, but today was a nice change to do something that doesn't get done very often this close to Phoenix. The next time I pedal up this beast I will remember what a great day this was.

Here's a vid of the day:

Clouds over Desert Classic - South Mountain (Phoenix, AZ)

2010-01-23T08:35:00.001-08:00

Ever spend an hour of so watching the cloud roll on by? Yeah, me neither.

How about we rap up an hours worth of clouds in 17 seconds.

This was done at 7:00 on Desert Classic at South Mountain Park in Phoenix. These are the last little remnants of stormfest 2010 that hit the Arizona. Some parts of AZ saw more rain from this one storm than they saw all of last year.

Allison Clay Drainage - Kachina Peaks (Flagstaff, AZ)

2010-01-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

Maadjurguer and I split from his place at about 5:30 am, and en route we made plans to meet up with a buddy of his in downtown Flagstaff, for a little tour over to the Allison Clay gully in the Kachina Peaks.

We split from the parking lot at 9:30, where we cut across Harts Prairie to Humprhey Trail. We then jumped on an established skin track and headed due north through the forest to Dutchman path. The we skinned up this clearing to the bomber crash site. Once we got to the bomber we traversed north around the mountain to Allison Clay.

When we got to the vast slope I could tell surface of the snow was gonna be horrid. It was ripped and rippled wind blown crust. The avi conditions were stable, but Maad wanted to get some snow analysis done before the next cycle storms were ready to hit during the next week. So he dug a pit and noted the stats. The weak layer on top appears it might be a problem once the next dump sits on it.

Maad and his buddy traversed across the bowl to the other side to take a look at the next gully on the other side of the next ridge. Myself I was pretty content staying right where I was at. I could see that although the other side of gully had seen some sun, it still look pretty nasty. Once I hit the bowl, my expectations were justified because the crust was terrrible, and no improvement in the conditions were found once I skied down and across the the other side of the gully. I'm glad I didn't spend anymore effort on this gully.

Once I met up with my colleagues, it wasn't easy for us to decide to leave Allison Clay and exit stage left to the trees where the snow was protected. And that was where the fun was at. The fresh snow that fell the past week was in excellent condition. We had traversed a little closer to the resorts direction, but we kept our eyes pealed for the ideal glade to rip down. Once we found some good tree spacing we tore it up. That was some really fun skiing.

I tried a new helmetcam mounting, but unfortunately I had it aimed at my ski tips. I ended up using this footage sparingly in the vid of the day. I also made a special vid of Maadjurguer doing his snow pit analysis.

Ski tour Vid:

Snow Analysis vid with Google Earth Route (Red line is the path up, Purple Line is Maad's path to the otherside, Yellow Line is Maad's descent, and the Blue line is the rest of the descent.)

Here's a little discussion over at Kachina Peaks Avalanche Center about Maad's analysis.

Tom's Thumb McDowell Mountains (Scottsdale, AZ)

2010-01-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

I met up with James at the Basha's in North Scottsdale (Bell and Thompson Peak) at 10:00 and the plan was to finally ride Tom's Thumb up in the McDowells. This trail was opened up about year ago.

The weather was perfect. Not cold, and it definitely wasn't gonna be hot. We had a little bit of high clouds and winds were kinda pumping on top.

Usually the ride up to nearby Windgate takes about an hour, but this one took us about 2 hours and 15 minutes. I was on my Reign X, which is topping the scales at 37lbs. Despite the weight, the bike really stuck to the trail. I was pretty familiar with the first half the pedal up, and the new trail up to Tom's Thumb started off in the same manner, but then about a mile and half from the top, the trail took us up a steep hill with about 18 bazillion swithbacks. These swithbacks were super steep and didn't allow for much room to come around. It kinda felt like Donkey Kong the walking up the 45 degree angle girders. The great part of this trail is that you pretty much had the goal in sight the whole time.

The trail composition change about a quarter mile before arriving at the Tom's Thumb Pass, to crushed granite cinder. It also changed to a moon landscape, as the trail meandered through giant boulders. Really rewarding a scenic.

James and I decided to continue down the backside of Tom's Thumb to where it intersects with Windmill (Windgate and Coachwhip). The cinder riding was fast, but kinda sketchy. Then couple this with steep decline with nasty switchbacks and y'all have yourself a pretty exciting ride. No big drops to speak up, but it was pretty thrilling. I was glad I had my big bike, with my big tires and big rotors.

We then climbed back up to the top of Windgate, maybe about 600 or 700 Vf of climbing. The rip down Windgate was a hoot. I was railing, and the big travel big soaked everything up.

I believe this loop was about 14 miles and it took us about 4.5 hours.

Here's the vid of day:

Here's a Google Earth Model of the Route:

Black Canyon Trail (North Section)

2010-01-01T19:39:00.000-08:00

I met up with Doode, and 7 other doods, to ride the new section of Black Canyon Trail. What a way to start off the year, but rolling on some primo single track.

Our plan was to leave some cars at The Black Canyon City Trailhead, and then shuttle up to Bumble Road where the trail intersects (about half mile off of I-17). We didn't actually park at this intersection, because we drove right by it. The signage was not to clear when we initially went by. Instead we parked a couple miles down the road; after the road turned unpaved. From here, we picked up the actually BCT. Joe and I pedaled back up the trail to the Bumble Bee Rd. intersection; about a mile.

We pretty much took our time on this ride, making sure we were on the correct path. We basically started pedaling at 10:30 and finished up around 2:30. That is a long time to cover 13 or 14 miles. Actually I'm not fully sure what the true mileage was, but I'd say its in that range. It isn't to tough to get off the path, due to the Jeep Road crossings, Stagecoach paths, and gas pipe line.

The trail obviously needs to be packed down more, but the contour of the path was really nice. Even the we shuttled to a higher point, it wasn't all down hill, since we went down to the bottom and up out of the river bed several times.

No real mechanicals, and surprisingly I think we only had two flats. Not bad for riding a brand new trail, which can be prone to have hidden sharp things.

Joe stated it pretty good, when he said "How you spend New Years Day is a pretty good indication on how you will spend the rest of the year". I can only hope I will continue to find excellent adventures, good company and feeling good all year.

Cheers.

Here's a vid of the day:

2009 Year End Recap Vid

2009-12-28T17:36:00.000-08:00

Here's a little video recap of some of the adventures of this past year. The Edge makes a special guest appearance as the narrator.

Happy New Year!

Enjoy.

Christmas Greeting From U2metoo

2009-12-24T13:44:00.000-08:00

A Christmas greeting from U2metoo

Hat tip to Maadjurguer

Sunset 12/19/09

2009-12-20T13:23:00.000-08:00

Here is last nights sunset wrapped up in 20 seconds:

Snowbowl Lift Day 12/18/09 (Flagstaff, AZ)

2009-12-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I had the day off and met up with Maadjurguer, and Chollaball, and then we drove up to Snowbowl in Flagstaff, where we met up with Jrock and B. for a little lift area skiing. We finally made to lift area season. Woot.

It was a bluebird day, and my upper layer consisted of a shell and t-shirt. We pretty much stuck to the groomers, and focused on the sunny spots where the snow had loosened up.

We did find a pretty fun tree run that led us down a gully that actually had good coverage.

I'm still trying to get my boots dialed in, as my tele-turns really suffered. Time to get my boots fitted, cuz the blistering and shin bang were pretty bad.

Everybody ripped it up. Pretty fun day, and other than my feet, I felt pretty good; not to much anaerobic burn in my legs. I need a few more days like this.

My go to video camera was acting up, so I was limited on the footage I got. I did piece together a video. It features Chollaball letting his freak flag fly, and is accompanied by fine suggestion from Maad using of Wide Spread Panic's 'Going West'. Along with the soundtrack, Maad also provided the super pic of CB.

Great day.

Here's the vid:

Snowbowl Preseason

2009-12-12T20:40:00.001-08:00

The big snow finally fell in Flagstaff, but just not quite enough to open the lifts. I couldn't wait, so I decided to head up anyways and skin up the groomers. The road to Snowbowl was open, so the only other obstacle was making sure they wouldn't mind if I did a couple of laps. I asked a couple of staff up there, and they said it was okay, but just stay outta the cats way who were laying had lines up for dragging snow.

My plan was to skin up from the bottom of Sunrise Chair which sits at 9,200 vf to the top of Agassiz Chair which tops out at 11,500. Heading up the groomers was easy except a couple the steeper slopes hadn't been groomed on my first trip up. Can't complain at all.

It was rather cool up there,spitting snow and low visibility. I had some new Scarpa T-2 tele boots to try out. They were much lighter than my old T-1 bumble bees, and they made the trip up a little more pleasurable. Despite a similar buckle system, they just didn't have the same rigidity, because the don't come up as one my calf. Despite this, I think once a get a few days of running them on the lifts, I get them dialed it. I might also opt the have the liners form fitted, so the fit a little more comfortable.

This was my first trip on the snow since Camp Muir trip the end of June, so I wasn't expecting much in my performance. I did end up doing two laps, for a total of 4,600 feet of ascending. I gotta admit, that I was pretty fatigued at the end of lap number two, but it was a good start to getting my fitness back.

Not much video footage, but here is short vid of what I got:

Six Shooter - Pinal Mt. - Globe, AZ

2009-11-28T19:10:00.000-08:00

I needed a long grind, and I knew exactly where to find it, Pinal Mt.

I've done several posts already on this ride: Six Shooter Trip Reports, so I won't spend a bunch a time rehashing the maps and stats.

I started pedaling up the road at 7:40 and 3 hours and 15 minutes later I was at the top of Six Shooter Canyon Trail. It was boring and painful, but I didn't bonk so its all good. I've done it faster, but this time I pedaled my Giant Reign X up. This thing pedals great, but it weighs in at 37 lbs. It is slow a fatiguing.

It was overcast when I started, and really windy up on top, but when I blasted out of the the trees near the bottom the skies were blue. When I looked back up on the hill I could see some ominous clouds building.

Here's a vid of the ride:

Apache Lake - Tonto National Forest

2009-11-11T19:27:00.001-08:00

In observance of Veterans Day, I wanted to get out some paddling in. I also wanted a lake I hadn't been on yet, so I asked for some suggestions, and the replies were to head to Apache Lake. I was a little concerned about the drive, more specifically the road to get there. The road was pretty much a none issue, as The Apache Trail was in great condition and actually provided spectacular views. Of course I wasn't seeing much when I hit the unpaved portion of the road at 6:00 am; it was still dark out.

I got the the Apache Lake Recreation Area at about 7:00. It was kinda smokey and hazy out, word is Mt. Ord nearby is burning (hattip Maadjurguer). It was also really breezy; it was blowing a consistent 15 mph plus wind from the east. I ended up taking a gamble on heading down to the the western half of the lake. My thoughts were that I'd ride the wind down to the end of the lake (Horse Mesa Dam), while hoping the winds wouldn't increase. I had a feeling the winds that were blowing were being caused by the usual sun up winds and could die down later in the morning. And for the most part they did die down and my wager paid off, I still had to battle the winds on my return, but they had diminished a ton.

My Seaward Quest kayak is actually pretty unstable when it isn't loaded down, so in order to reduce the bobber effect, I grabbed a couple of big rocks and put them in the for and aft storage compartments for ballast. It really helped the boats stability, but I just had to be careful not punch a hole through the hull. I had done this before, but usually the water I've been paddling lately is calm enough that I don't need to.

As for the lake, I was really jazzed. I love the cavernesque sections of Canyon Lake, which Apache Lake doesn't really offer (at least on the western half), but it does have some of the similar dramatic cliffs that seem to go from the top of the sky straight into the water. What I really liked about these cliff, were the contrast of color - reds, blacks, green and normal rock color.

I resist the urge to head to any AZ lake on the weekend, because they are just to busy for my taste. Although it wasn't perfect solitude on Apache Lake, there were only a few boats out fishing. Nice, real nice.

For my route I closely stuck to the shoreline coast as I circumnavigated the lake in clockwise direction. I tucked into just about every little bay and cove. These bays also helped protect me from the wind. My trip totaled 14.6 miles and took me about 6 hours.

As for wildlife, I had my eyes peeled for some big horned sheep, but saw none. I did spot a bald eagle hanging out cliff, and I got some footage of the bird taking flight.

Here's a vid of the day:

Lemmon Drop - Tucson, AZ

2009-11-07T20:22:00.000-08:00

mtbiker2u organized a ride I've been meaning to do for a very long time down in Tucson, and it is commonly known as a Lemon Drop. Basically we drove up to the 7,300 foot level on Mt. Lemon, where we found the Green Mt. Trailhead.

There were 6 of us, Evil Patrick, Evil Tracey, Turtlgerl, NoelG, mtbiker2u, and myself. We started heading down about 9:30 am, as we blasted down the trail. Mind you this is not all downhill. The 20 mile tour had some long, draining hike-a-bike sections. Although the total descent was over 7,000 feet, we actually had 2,500 feet of climbing in there. Our actual route was Green Mountain - Bugs Spring - Molino Basin - AZ Trail - La Milagrosa. We did the full meal deal, but since this trail crosses over the highway a few times, the numerous starting and stopping points allows for many options to doing some shorter rides here.

From top to bottom this trail, had some serious gnar, and steep descents. Unfortunately, my rear brake had an air bubble in it for the whole ride down. So if I wanted any rear brake at all, and I had to charge the brake up and then ride the brakes the whole way down. That pretty much sucked. And it lead me to eating it a few times at crucial times when all I was left with was a front brake.

When we got to the base of Molino, the thought had crossed our minds of skipping La Milagrosa, and taking the road back down to our cars, but we continued on. And the gnar continued on. I was surprised how fatiguing this ride was. I wasn't fully tapped or bonked, but it was what it was. And it was also a hoot.

It was about 4:30 by the time we made down to cars at the bottom of the hill.

I can't wait to get back up there again.

Here's a vid of the day:

Goat Camp - White Tank Mountains

2009-10-31T20:36:00.000-07:00

Met up with some MTBR doods to day for a Halloween throw-down on Goat Camp.

It was a most excellent day, except the lower hike-a-bike was actually kinda warm. I'm in the process of kicking a cold, so my fitness really took a noes dive the past few weeks. My sniffles were mostly gone, but I was pretty much dragging butt the whole ride.

I gotta say I got chewed up and spit out on the gnar. I had one minor over-the-bars crash near the beginning of the decent, so I pretty much took it easy after that.

There was some pretty talented riders with us, and they made the trail look easy, but it aint. This is my second look at it, and I think I need another crack at it soon.

Here's a vid of the day:

Canyon Lake Paddle

2009-10-12T19:23:00.001-07:00

What better way of celebrating the Columbus Day holiday, but with a little voyage. I rolled outta my driveway at 5:30 am, an hour later I was at the Acacia Picnic Site. After dinking around with my camera, I was on the water at 7:00 am.

Like anybody I else, I prefer this lake with no traffic, but unfortunately this wasn't going to happen today. Boats were already buzzing around, when I launched. Not bad for most of the day, but my return was a little choppy.

This was my second play day in row, so didn't make it to the end of the lake. I ended up turning around a little ways past Blue Tank Cove. This filming stuff takes lotsa time, so my tour ended up taking about 5 hours.

I saw a pair of eagles moments after I launched, but never saw them after that. I was kind of tripped out though, cuz I swear I saw a roadrunner flying between a small gap of rocks. I tried to film her, but I was just too slow.

Other than the activity on the lake, it was a great paddle.

Here's a vid of my paddle:

Here's a one minute Google Earth Tour of my route:

Black Canyon Trail - Black Canyon City, AZ

2009-10-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

I need a longish ride, so I ended up rolling with some peeps over on MTBR on the Black Canyon Trail.

It was a perfect day to ride, as we met up on at 7:00 at the Black Canyon City Trailhead, and we were on the trail before 7:30. The temps were down right comfy, and pretty much stayed that way. The clouds shaded us when we needed it, and when they weren't there, a gentle breezed offered a helping hand

The pace was excellent, not to punishing neither to fast, nor not to much waiting. Pretty nice for the group of 10 or so riders that did the full meal deal.

Here's vid of the ride:

Night ride at McDowell's Pemberton 09/12/09 - McDowell Mountain Regional Park

2009-09-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

Last night Tim, Tom and I did the final night ride of the season, out on Pemberton last night at the McDowell Mountain Regional Park. They usually host these rides about once a month, and this was the first on I participated in.

We rolled into the Trailhead Staging Area around 7:30; it had just gotten dark. The lost was about 3/4 full of eager riders. We hit the trail about 8:15 and the 15 mile loop took us about 2 hours.

My new Princeton Tec Switchback 3 headlamp worked really well. I've been using it in the morning for the rides, but this was the first group ride with it, and it was reassuring it had the stamina to keep bright for an extended period of time. It is kinda heavy, and not quite as bright as an HID, it flooded the trail with tons of light. Not bad for $182 shipped to my door (via chainlove).

I've only riden Pemberton twice, and was never really thrilled with the trail, due to the lack of fun hills and sand, but it is pretty neat trail to ride at night. The creatures were out, as I spotted four tarantulas, a little toad, and big phat diamondback rattlesnake.

Here's a thread on MTBR that talks about the ride: Last Night ride at McDowell's Pemberton 09/12/09.

Here's a couple of short vids of the creatures crawling about:

Ebike (electric bike)

2009-09-07T12:59:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I imagine I will be shunned by some in the biking community for getting into my latest venture; an electric bike.

What? an electric bike? Well, I took an ordinary commuter bike, threw a big battery on the back and brushless motor hub up front. It has a solid state (electronic) controller that goes between the battery and the motor, and Cycle Analyst to meter my usage (speed, amp hours used, watts, voltage, etc).

Why in the world would I do this??? Well, I've been taking the bus into work everyday for the past three years, and I usually spend about two hours a day going back and forth. My goal was to get my on way commute on this bike down to under a half hour, and my best time yet is 27 minutes. By going back and for on this bike I just and hour of my life back everyday. Not bad. I'm a rather strong biker, but I don't have shower facilities at work and I'd rather save my legs for the trail instead of the road.

What's it like? It isn't super torqueeee, but it is pretty dang powerful. When I take off from an intersection, I usually start of pedaling (not necessary)and I blow the cars away. On flat ground I've topped out at 34 mph, and the range is around 25 miles.

I spent several weeks researching what I wanted out of a bike on www.endless-sphere.com, and purchased my kit from www.comcycle-usa.com.

What do I have wrapped up in this beast? I spent $450 for the bike (REI - Novara Buzz - with chromoly fork and disk brakes), $900 for the 600W BMC electric motor hub and controller w/ thumb throttle, $900 for the 48v 15 ah LiFePO4 battery, and $145 for the Cycle Analyst (stand alone). Sure I coulda got a motorcycle/scooter, but I at the traffic signals I got to the head of the class because I cruise down the bike lane.

Here's video of my project:

NRA Jumping: Mesa, AZ

2009-08-30T20:05:00.000-07:00

Went up with the crew out at NRA to see how jumping is done.

My skilz are very impressive, in fact I actually ate it on my first drop. Baby steps, but everybody else were flying. Super spectacular was put on by Kenny B. and C&L.

Anycow, here's a vid of the day:

Chongoman's Annual Ride: Geronimo - SoMo (Phoenix, AZ)

2009-08-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

The bikers started showing up this morning at 5:30 Chongoman's Annual ride, and what a ride it was. I think our crew totaled about 15, as we suffered up Javelina, Mormon Loop, National to ride down Geronimo.

The heat was on, and on it was, but perhaps a tad bit cooler than last year. No owies and the only mechanicals were simultaneous flats. And I was one of 'em.

Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Chongoman for hosting us.

Here's a vid of the day:

Click to play

And a Hi-res Quicktime version can be found here: Chongoman's Annual Ride

Javelina on Desert Classic (South Mountain) - Phoenix, AZ

2009-08-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

I ran into a couple of Javelina on my Desert Classic pedal this morning. It had been a while since I seen 'em, but I they were spotted in the usual spot. They come up from sipping water from the yards near by, and were ready to bed down for the day.

I had just rolled off the water tank, and slipped by the trees when I smelled this horrible stench. And at that moment, I knew it was a javelina. I stopped in my track and turned around, and there was a one sitting in the bushes about 15 feet away.

Here are a few clips of the porkers:

Click to play