Salome Jug - Tonto Nationa Forest - Arizona

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:

Kayaking the Lower Salt River

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:

Kayaking the Verde River (White Bridge to Beasley Flats)

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

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)

Spending the night in the backcountry at Apache lake is your typical Cinco de Mayo, but it is an ahsum way.
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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:

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

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

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.

K Trail - Apache Junction, AZ

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:

Bug Spring & La Milagrosa (Tuscon, AZ)

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:

Quadruple Bypass - McDowell Mountains

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

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)

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:

The Bear ( El Oso Rd.)

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

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: