Hiking our way through the virus continues! Ballantine Trail NE of Saguaro Lake. We went up the edge of a mesa, then followed a creek further into the mountain. Took a gentler route down along the creek the whole way. Active trail with fun flow, wildflowers and water.
Category: Adventures
Chiricahua 25 Years Later
Avoiding humanity at Chiricahua National Monument.
We get about 1 weekend a quarter not busy with kids’ activities, so are actually enjoying Spring in AZ together. 8 hrs in the car, 6 hrs on the trail, leftover takeout for dinner watching the Women’s National Team – today was a good day! Stay safe and positive.
Scottsdale has a density of about 1250 per square mile, and so far is doing well. “Anti-climactic” is a sign of success. We’ve been shut-down for 2.5 weeks, but not on lockdown. The trail system I live next to is too crowded on weekends to be safe, I ride at night.
Beckie and I hiked Chiricahua in 1995, when she was in grad school at U of A. Our first hike together in AZ, and we finally managed to return with the kids. We saw less than 20 people all day, the closest I got to anyone was buying gas on the outskirts of Tucson.
Barnhardt Trail for my 50th
My 50th birthday. Originally scheduled to take G to San Diego for a soccer tourney. Then, we bought tickets to snowboard in Flagstaff. 3rd try was a cat-like recovery hiking the Barnhardt Trail south of Payson. Saw about 10 people all day long. 12miles round trip, 2000 vf up through a canyon to the top of the Mazatzal mountains. So much water running down the mountain provided spectacular waterfalls, sloppy trails, and a constant soundtrack.
Wolf Creek Xmas 2019
My annual Xmas gift to the family. Genevieve rode her first cliffs, and is loving black trees. Alana keeps getting better in the woods and enjoying herself more. Pagosa Springs is our winter happy place. Two new lifts and selective clearing has made the back side more diverse, so much fun showing the girls the best pow on the mountain.
Spring Flowers 2019
The Reata Wash trail is an 8 mile out and back from my house, with about 500 vf and enough rocks to make it a good hour-long workout. Its outside the Preserve, and not a lot of people, so I can ride it anytime and usually have Dia offleash. Every color of wildflower comes out, sometimes entire fields of yellow brittlebrush.
Spotted a penstemon, which I’ve never seen here before. And a globemallow at the takeoff for this natural channel. This channel changes constantly, sometimes its too sketchy to jump into and too chunky to ride. Today it was in great shape.
Next day Beckie and I took our friend Jennifer Mac out to pose for her amazing new camera.
Couldnt get enough flowers after 2 days of riding, so I drug G out for a loop around Granite Mountain after school on Monday.
Sunday we motivated to Tom’s Thumb for the show.
Spring Break 2019
Part 1: Beautiful and brisk start to spring break in Rocky Point, two days of heavy rains where we crammed in some paddleboarding in the calm from the cold sitting over us and squashing the typical winds. Then it was beautiful again.
When the wind is blowing hard on the beach side, or I’ve missed low tide, the estuary can deliver a fun ride.
The estuary is all about choices.
My pro tip – always choose the sand
looks like a lovely carpet to a firm beach? The grass is spongey and comes exactly to my pedal’s downstroke, where it tugs my feet every single turn.
The beach will sink 6 inches instantly.
Bad choices.
If you can see your track, its already too late for Death Mud. Bad choice, always choose the sand.
end of the ride unless I wanted to push over the dune. Sometimes you can connect with the beach side, but not today.
there is no bad weather, there is only inadequate clothing. Old raingear never dies, it lives forever in your beach house garage.
A few years ago I was showboating for the kids, and promptly got my truck stuck in the sand in Rocky Point. I was saved by a tow from a couple strangers, and quickly bought a tow rope and shackles to store in my truck. This week Rocky Point got nearly an inch of rain in less than 24 hrs, which turned the graded sand roads into our neighborhood to a mud pit. Not a problem for me w 4WD, but devastating to some of the local working people in small cars with old tires. We helped pull two cars out of the mud, and finally gave a few of the local workers a ride back into town along with the bumper from their car that the mud wouldnt relinquish. They were shocked, to say the least, that any Americans would stop for them, let alone get themselves and their cars filthy and go out of their way for a Mexican stranger. One woman tried to give me money, all I could say was ‘mucho gusto’ over and over.
Plenty of times my kids have seen us roll our eyes and mock some of the things that work backwards in Mexico, but they’ve also seen us almost unfailingly treat everyone we meet with respect. Because we are so much more fortunate than most of the people we meet there, its that much more important to set a good example for the kids about acting with decency towards everyone.
Bonus: I got to use a poncho that i havent worn since 8th grade, and has been sitting in the gear compartment of the truck for almost 10 yrs.
i really should know what this is growing out of the dunes on the beach side…but I dont.
Next time I will ask at the CEDO.
Spring Break part 2. Big rains at the beach mean big dump in the mountains. Except 5:30am in Scottsdale my engine wouldn’t start. I hosed it down for 15 min and washed off a gallon more mud, then it started. Mexico.
The eternal dog question:
better to be home alone for for 36 hrs
or
6 hours a day in the parking lot, all I can eat ham & eggs from the hotel breakfast buffet, and LOTS of time surrounded in close stinky quarters with my family?
G is hooked on trees with me!!
i’m not sure yet if she does it for the trees, or for the powder. I do it for both, and I think she does too. Maybe so does everyone. She can barely toe turn in the trees, but is getting the confidence and patience and vision. That’s all so much more important than being clean, when your goal is to get through challenging terrain safely. I love her mindset.
It was tough riding my lines while keeping an eye on her for 2 days, but we got more compatible quickly. I figured out about where she was and kept near, she about figured out to keep an eye on me. I had to unbuckle once and climb uphill to pull her out of a dip. And one time she slammed into a tree. The rest was awesome. We were in the trees like 80%. she was extremely autonomous the other 20%.. well sure its only Flagstaff blacks, but…not bad for her Day 10.
Alana skied, some. she got better, when she wanted to. She is fun even if she is high-maintenance. Here’s the secret code to successfully skiing with Alana these days: 4th graders ski free all year in Snowbowl. Online ski rental for her is $10, with a $15 restaurant credit. I actually made money by giving Alana $5 to go to the lodge and not complain. And that satisfied my inner scales with an AZ girl who is not grateful for getting to drive 2.5 hrs to ski powder at 10,000 feet for free.
No friends on powder days.
Beckie rides a lot like Alana. It was spectacular!
Desert Trails and the Salt River
7:30 on a Thursday, we had Desert Trails all to ourselves
Alana staying within herself, first time here on the 26er.
So I wanted to see how the Bentley with the plus wheels would perform, with the tire pressure and suspension all pumped up. It was a hoot in the s-curves and landings, but totally wrong for the takeoffs on the tabletops.
G’s first time off this jump!
Then we locked $15k worth of bikes to a tree outside of No Snow and went for a paddle.
Left another one at the put-out. We’re worse than Lime Bikes, with bikes scattered all over NE Mesa.
Sarasota Paddling
Nashville Paddling
Saguaro Fruit Harvest
I met Bluebird 10 years ago, on a group ride from Crown King to Lake Pleasant. He drove the shuttle bus. I re-met him recently through the NoDDC efforts. This should be declared as a campaign donation, its been so cool.
Two weeks ago Bluebird hosted me, G and ‘lana on a walk through the State Land off Pima and Dynamite. He’s a naturalist, a survivalist, and otherwise a normal guy with an iphone. He showed us how to eat palo verde seeds, and mesquite pods. How to see mice trails in the ground, and hair and bones in coyote poo. The hands-on training had all 3 of us stoked about our 5am wake-up, and what we learned.
Two weeks later Bluebird hosted a saguaro harvest. G and I were both fired up to go! So, we are going to use some dried saguaro ribs, wrapped together, and whack the fruit off the top.
Split it open. No needles on the fruit, but fetching them off the ground G and I were constantly pulling needles out of our gloves. Everything in the desert bites, and everything that fell bounced down into a crack that had collected needles and burs
Respect to our place in the world prior to kickoff! No one kneeled for this national anthem. In our group of 6 we had 4 generations, a couple hippies, a couple kids, an ex-cop, a solid Republican or 2, and a hooligan. NoDDC has brought me together with all these people to find what we have in common.
so many barfing jokes.
This was so sweet and full of seeds, it was a natural goo shot. Fruity, freshy, but mild. It snuck up on us 1000 calories later when we all felt grossly full once the jelly and seeds broke down.
Next day breakfast, G needed flavor for plain yogurt on her pancakes. I too started my day with some scoops. We held a few and cut a few to see what the fridge and porch did to them. And will keep at this for a few more days. Yay Food!
I have a thing about not wasting food, co-influenced by knowing nothing about hunting or fishing. I can grow a plant, harvest it, use it to lure meat. This session was very empowering.
Bluebird showed us how to make a rope out of aloe spears. This is the next thing I need to learn from him!
Actual battle of non-stop bickering sisters proving the power of this rope. Because, they couldnt even stop bickering enough to pose. They just had to fight.
