Lockett Meadow

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.
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I figured out how to get to the Pumic Mine gully, that made the exit really nice.

Picketpost Mtn - Superior, AZ

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

Click to play

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Daily Double: Mtn Biking and Skiing the same day

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

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

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

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: