Tom's Thumb McDowell Mountains (Scottsdale, AZ)

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)

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

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

A Christmas greeting from U2metoo



Hat tip to Maadjurguer

Sunset 12/19/09

Here is last nights sunset wrapped up in 20 seconds:

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

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

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: