We finished up our third and final Santa Rita epic recon ride. The pieces are complete–now all that remains is to attempt the whole thing.
Although I’ve done a number of rides on the east side, it is one of the most confusing areas on the planet. Small canyons and roads everywhere. All the canyons look the same, for the most part, and every canyon and every ridge has got a road, which all look the same. It’s really not that hard to get where you are going–just head north or head south, and make logical choices. But, I really wanted our route to be fresh in our minds, since we’ll be burning into the 10th or 11th hour of riding by the time we get over there.
It was a very good idea, because our route of choice turned out to be closed. 163, through Greaterville has been closed with a huge no trespassing sign. Just above the closure we ran into a huge gathering of folks on motorcycles & atvs. Through the clamor of thirty combustion engines I listened to one of the riders tell me about a way around the gate, including an old road, a cow trail and some bush-whacking. It sounded like just our kind of caper.
We rolled down the road and sure enough ran into the big sign. We then turned left and climbed away from it. We passed a right turn on a road, and kept pedaling, towards the AZ trail. Our road finally petered out at a fire ring, so we headed back to take the nearest “cow trail.” I could tell Lee was excited about the prospect of struggling our way back over to Greaterville road. I was more concerned about finding a reasonable way to finish the big ride, whenever it happens. After the cow trail was no more Lee kept hoofing his bike straight up the hill. I paused, pondering our options. He came back and we agreed to pop over the next ridge to see where exactly we were. Greaterville was a stone throw away, and there was even a gate–legal access. We found yet another cow trail that led back to our road. So, a viable route was found, but it wasn’t going to be as swift as we had hoped.
The other option is, of course, to take the AZ trail all the way, which adds another mile or two and 600 or so feet of climbing. In all of the many choices of route thus far, we have yet to shy away from the most challenging/most fun/steepest routes, so why not some more? Well, this road closure is making the rest of the AZ trail seem a bit more tempting. It’s likely the decision won’t be made until we’re in transit, tired and begging for the ride to end. So, we’ll see.
Today’s ride was a superb ride, following suit with the other recon rides. It was much shorter, easier and nearly devoid of hike-a-bike (until the end road closure debacle), but full of enjoyable riding. I felt okay, but it is clear that I still have a mild form of a cold. We rode from Box Canyon to Gardner and back, taking the high line on the way out and the low line on the way back (AZ trail).
26 miles, 5 hours total time and 4500 feet of climbing. 26 on the TopoFusion difficulty index.
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