Wayne made us a smoothie/bagel breakfast that was out of sight. We’re definitely lacking in the nutirional department on this trip, so this really hit the spot.
He told us about a singletrack that took us out of town to connect on the Cracker Jack mine road. The singletrack had some brief hike-a-bike and some creek crossings, but also some nice sections. It really completes a nice off-road route into and out of Payson for AZT bikers. Thanks to Wayne for all his route help and to Lee for hooking us up with him.
Cracker Jack mine road paralled the East Verde river, giving us some nice views of the rushing creek. From Cracker Jack we took a bumpy road over to the Tonto Natural Bridge road where we dropped down to Pine Creek and a group of houses.
We weren’t sure how welcome we were since there were private property signs around, but we hopped on a quiet nature path before a woman waved us over. She was very friendly, encouraging us to go back and sign in at the trail register. She told us how to connect over to the Oak Springs trail that would bring us back to the official AZT, fresh out of the Mazatals.
There was some hiking involved, but actually it was quite rideable–until we got back on the AZT. Ah, our old friend the AZT, rocky, steep switchbacks and lugging the bike up. Tough stuff, but the town of Pine was not far.
We went through an area where Forest Service (?) folks had felled trees onto the trail and left them there. Definitely an annoyance, but the area appeared to be suffering from bark beetle or other pestilence. Eventually we emerged on the highway, then cruised into Pine for lunch at the “nifty fifties” cafe. The root beer float I got there was divine.
Now it was time to face a major challenge: 17.2 miles of the Highline Trail. We had heard nothing but horror stories about the Highline trail, so we expected the worst: 17.2 miles of hiking over tough terrain. The highline trail contours along about 500 feet below the Mogollon Rim, except that it’s “contouring” in a loose sense; it is never flat.
So it was with shock that we rode the first ~mile out of the trailhead parking lot. Thankfully the trail had been logged out recently, so downed trees were not a problem (what a contrast from the AZT just on the other side of the highway). It’s a national recreation trail, which means it actually gets money for maintenence.
Soon we were indeed hiking, but the trail was clear, there were no fox tails or other stickers to get us, and the temperature was cool. It seemed easy compared to the previous challenges on the AZT.
The trail continued alternating with nice, sweet sections of wooded singletrack and very tough hike a bike sections. The best part, though, was the views, and some of the delicously technical stuff. Slickrock, ledges, views of red cliffs with the setting sun. I was absolutely loving it.
We coasted a nice downhill out to Camp Germino before beginning yet another climb back to contour again. Amazingly, it was rideable. I pulled out turn after turn of the climb. It was just one of those evenings when everything feels good, you have a rhythm and you feel invincible.
We opted to not fill up at the rushing Germino Creek so we could stay light for the upcoming climb. We were running into water about every mile, so it was safe bet. We got to bear spring, about 3 miles from Germino and were now losing daylight. We couldnt’ find any water–just a pipe, so we rolled on. We were about to camp with ~1 bottle or so when we finally ran into a creek with marginal camping nearby. I slept some of the best sleep of the trip listening to the creek flow below me.
We resumed combat with the Highline trail early the next morning. I continued to enjoy it, in a sick kind of way. I would definitely ride this trail again, though without a load. I continued wiht my strategy of unloading the bike so I could ride techinical stuff, and it worked well. I got some good rallies going where I was blown away by how much I could ride. I’m learning what these big (29 inch) wheels can do and I am very impressed.
We emerged at washington park midday to begin climbing up to the rim. At first it looked very nice. I dug my feet into the pedals to rip out some rocky sections. I was riding close to my limit, but couldn’t really resist it. Creeks were rushing on both sides of me and I was getting excited to climb up into the real mountains.
Soon I realized it was time to cool it down as the upcoming climb was unbelievably steep and rocky. It reminded me of hiking Fleecer Ridge on the continental divide last summer. So steep and rocky that you can barely stand, let alone make progress up the hill. With a bike it was tough work, but the top was fixed in my mind. I kept my determination going and was soon standing on flat ground, triumphant.
Lee followed and we celebrated attaining the rim. I joked “all easy to Flagstaff, now.” I knew that was a bogus claim, but oh if I only knew how truly ridiculous it was.
The theory was that since it was now ten times more flat it would be ten times as easy. Hah.
0.5 miles of cruising on a flat dirt road was great, but soon we were back on classic, hard, AZT. It wound down a creek, crossing it every 50 feet (requiring a dismount due to the volume). There were trees down and in some places the trail was gone. Ugh. Given my high expectations (of rideability and speed, roughly) it made for some frustration, muttering and cursing. It was immature, and after Lee requested a little nap, I laid down and finally wised up. Ok, so we’re not going to be to Flagstaff on nice easy trails. Oh well, this is still not that hard, and it was nice to be up in the trees.
Crossing East Clear Creek was a real beast. Dozens of trees down and steep, eroded trail on the other side. We pushed more as the day went on and we were both getting tired. Half the highline trail, the push to the rim and now this!!! Finally we emerged onto flat trails but curses they were so rocky that they were almost unrideable. Bump-buh-buh-bump…..
It was tough, and we were ready to call it a day, but the sun was still up. Lee took a little detour on a dirt road as I continued on the AZT down to Blue Ridge Campground. It was closed, but we laid down and crashed there anyway.
In the morning our hopes were again high for improved trail conditions. AFter popping over to the ranger station, where they offered us fresh, hand picked blueberry muffins, we continued on the AZT.
Most of the trail from blue ridge was bumpy roads. And I mean bumpy. We were riding our bikes and not hiking, thankfully, but it wasn’t exactly sweet riding. Lee and I struggled with each other a bit, with me wanting to stick with the trail, despite it’s lack of attractive qualities, and Lee dreaming of smoother surfaces and alternate routes.
We were basically just crusining through endless forests. Views were limited, climbs were short, and the potholes from elk hooves were beating the crap out of us. At least with the potholes we got to see the corresponding Elk, and they were huge. That we wouldnt’ have seen from the highway. But I began to wonder a bit myself as to what exactly we were doing. There was one section, in particular, where we rode across a rock strewn meadow, with no trail, trying to follow rock cairns and occasional tiny signs. The maximum speed over these rocks was about 2 mph and the abuse factor was high. It was kind of cool, in an odd way, to see this bumpy meadow and suffer across it. But I started thinking that the AZT here is rather arbitrary. Taking a smoother dirt road that goes to the same place started to make more sense to me. Hikers don’t want a smoother dirt road since it will mean more traffic, but it could save cyclists hours of pain. Since it’s all just forest with no views I started to lose the point of staying on the AZT. “Who would ever want to ride this section?” says Lee. But we stuck with it for another 20 long miles.
After most of day of getting thrashed around and searching high and low for AZT markers (often hidden), we hit an improved dirt road that Dave Hicks suggests bikers take instead of his route. I wasn’t sure why, but due to reasons described above, we did this, and were glad we did when we saw the AZT again — there was no trail and two trees down within eyesight.
We tried to connect back onto the AZT to follow it to Mormon Lake but the roads were all closed and looking muddy. We were not even sure that any real trail existed since we had conflicting reports from people. So, we called it a day and hopped on the highway into Mormon Lake.
At Mormon Lake we fueled up on good grub, and met our first AZT thru-hiker. Daniel is from London and was a blast to talk to. We spent hours swapping stories and such. He’s 19, doing the trail solo, but will have to drop out at Flagstaff due to a knee injury sustained way back in the Canelo Hills.
There was talk of rain in the forecast, so we were happy to be in the lodge for a night after two days of sleeping in the dirt, but it didn’t rain. So we left in the morning under clear skies. Same story as we crusied the pavement: road closed. But we finally found the AZT at the rail road grade, then hopped on for more elk potholes and rocks. But actually it was very nice. I was happy to be back on the trail even if I was getting thrashed around.
Some sections were very nice, especially as we headed towards the highway. The climb up was OK as well, nicely rideable and all. At this point we noticed a wall of dark clouds to the west. Continuing on the trail towards Marshall Lake we had a nuclear tailwind blowing us towards Flagstaff. It was looking good, but the wall was getting closer and closer.
Singletrack began and it was more bump-buh-buh-bump. Slow progress, then slower still as the snow set in. We rode by many lakes that are usually dry but due to the wet winter/spring are bursting full. In fact the AZT itself was underwater for one section, forcing us to hop a barbed fence twice to reconnect with it. I also ran into a grey wolf during the storm. I saw him before he saw me; and when he did he quickly bolted away.
We were happy that it was snow since we thought we could continue. But it started to melt as it hit and within minutes the mud was picking up on our tires. 5 minutes later I was having clearence issues on my rear rack. The snow picked up instensity and it soon became clear that we were sunk. We made a bee-line for the Lake Mary highway, sliding down rocks and through gullies as the snow pounded down. The first dirt road we reached was a mucky mess, reaffirming our decision. The flagstaff locals told us that the Sandy’s canyon area would be a total mess in any kind of rain.
It was very disappointing since I knew we were missing out on prime singletrack, but, there wasn’t much else we could do but ruin the trails and our bikes. So we blasted into Flag on the pavement.
Immediately we hit the bike shops for some work on my White Brothers fork which still refuses to hold air. Since payson the problem has worsened to where I have to add air about every 2 hours of riding, depending on the rougness of the trail. In this last section of bump bump, it was getting down to about 1 hour between pumps.
We’re currently chilling at AZ bikes where Bryce is working after hours to convince my fork to hold air. He’s also got a spring I can throw in if things get too desperate. He’s gone above and beyond to get us back on the road. He’s blasting good tunes as I write this and as Lee works on his bike and talks bikes with the various people who keep popping in. His shop and open, friendly style reminds me of Todd Mende and his shop. Thanks Bryce.
We hope to leave Flagstaff tomorrow morning, but things are looking grim for the north rim — still 5 feet of snow at the gate on Jacob Lake. But for now we need to ride to the South Rim, and we could be facing even more mud. I’m really bummed that we might be missing even more of the trail after working so hard to stay on it down south. It’s just a bad spring for riding here in the northland. I think we’d have to wait until well into June to ride the North Kaibab trail.
Thanks to everyone for reading along and for the comments and encouragement. So far I’ve mostly just been reporting the story and not so much observations, impressions and thoughts from the trail. That’s probably the more interesting stuff, but it’s looking like it’ll have to wait until later.
My b-day was yesterday, as we rolled into Mormon Lake. I can’t think of a better way to spend a b-day than out on the AZT with my friend Lee.
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