Black Canyon Trail - Hohokam Hilltop Fortress Ruins

Did an early pedal with Brian C., Brett, Scott and Dave today out on the Black Canyon Trail. I split from my house at about 4:40 am and met up with the single speed crazies at about 5:30 (actually I was a few minutes late), and we were on the trail at about 5:50.

It was gonna be a scorcher, hence the early start. I think we were the only people out there; pretty desolate.

From the Black Canyon City trailhead, our group of 5 nearly made to the Little Pan Loop trail junction. I've been meaning to find the Hohokam Hilltop Ruins, and so I took the opportunity to do a little solo exploring since the groups turnaround point was so close to the 1,000 year old ruins. I ventured off down the trail to road. Where the ruins are, I had been by a several times, but I was just oblivious to the ruins location. Bigrigmig, had commented on one of my earlier posts about the fortress, and there whereabouts, and armed with this knowledge I was able to locate 'em.

Anycow, here's a little video of the day:

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National - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

Ran into Kelstr and Steve on the way up National this morning, so here's a little footage of our ride down:

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And here's a short (time lapse) vid of haboob rolling in yesterday:

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Geronimo - South Mountain: Phoenix, AZ

Yesterday topped out around 115 degrees, so I pretty much knew today was gonna be a repeat, hence a 5:30 am start. I met up with Kort at South Mountain's 46th Street parking lot, as the sun was just coming up. The little bit of cloud cover not only provided for a nice sunrise (sorry no pics), but also gave us a couple of hours of relief from the scorching sun.

Today, I was riding the Kona Stinky Dee-Lux, and man what a workout. Both up an down. Its heavy and doesn't pedal. I'm also learning how to take such a tank down the hill. Pretty much, I just hang on and plow through the boulders. Choosing my line down like my Cannondale Prophet is really self defeating.

Anycow, Kort and I had a blast ripping down Geronimo.

Here's vid of the ride. Not super interesting as its just helmet cam footage:

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