GWT

Despite being on day 3 of a nasty cold, I pulled myself together to ride across town with Lee headed for Mt. Lemmon. I have asthma at times when I ride, mainly driven by allergies, but this cold brought out the worst asthma I’ve ever experienced. I could not sleep, nor even get drowsy, before waking up to force myself to breathe deep. I finally got on my commuter bike and rode hard through my neighborhood, trying to clear out whatever was preventing me from breathing. That was around midnight. It worked.

Climbing Lemmon was nothing short of a disaster. I was able to keep things together at 6-7 mph to Prison Camp, suffering. But then Lee stopped, so I stopped as well. This was a bad idea. Whatever faculty I had for obtaining oxygen was quickly lost. Gaspin’ for air, so I hopped back on the bike, unable to think of any other recourse.

The next mile of pedaling was some of the worst I’ve yet experienced. It’s fair to say I’ve suffered a bit on a bike, but this was looking pretty grim. I was struggling to maintain 3 mph. To those that know Mt. Lemmon, it is not a steep grade — just unrelenting.

I coughed, wheezed, blew snot, but nothing helped. I couldn’t even keep my head up. My legs started to feel weak and I don’t blame them since they weren’t getting any oxygen.

I knew I was done. Lee was wondering if he was going to need to call a helicopter to get me out of there. But I was determined to make it a little higher where I could rest in the trees, breathe less pollunated air, and get away from the gnats.

And I did, but it was at a high cost. At Bear Canyon, I laid down, did some stretching and tried to breathe, but it wasn’t coming. Eventually I ended up on my side, and I actually fell asleep.

In the meantime, Lee got up and continued the assault on Mt. Lemmon, looking for Mr. E. Schlimmer.

When I got up I found I could breathe. But I was still hammered and it was getting hot. Part of me wanted to go try climbing again to redeem myself, but logic prevailed…. for a while. I watched clouds roll in on the outskirts of Hurricane Otis, and that pushed it over the edge. I saddled up to ride to Windy Point. And it felt good.

I met up with Lee and Schlimmer near Lizard Rock. We pointed our bikes downhill and took a few films of Erik as he descended.

At Prison Camp I insisted we take the AZT. He’s supposedly riding the Arizona Trail, right? It was good. Then I suggested we continue on over Molino, heading to Redington or Milagrosa. I was shot down by both Erik and Lee. The clouds would have made it a pleasant ride, but it’s not my ride so I was happy to head back home, too.

I guess it was a long ride back to my house. I enjoyed it, especially with the clouds and despite being sick and still weak. It’s hard to enjoy it when someone you’re riding with isn’t happy, though.

The next day I was somehow convinced to drive out to the AZT work party. My idea was to ride, with Schlimmer, out to the new AZT, then on the AZT to where we’d work. Then he’d continue on the trail out from there. Didn’t happen.

I couldn’t sleep (again) on Sunday night, so I was a wreck Monday morning. There was no way I could ride to Colossal Cave, show him the trail, and ride back. So I said I’d drive, or he could ride out by himself. We hopped in the car, making Erik’s thru-ride not quite a thru-ride (he didn’t ride from the Catalina Highway to the Rincon Valley).

Then we rode the awesome Rincon Valley trail, including the section we threw tools on the day before. At Posta Quemada Ranch we hiked up the horse trail to begin bushwhacking to where the trail work left off last year. This was the route Lee and I took this spring on the AZT. It gets thick with vegetation, but it’s not very long and is just a drop in the hat for hike-a-bike on the AZT.

I made it to where trail starts (based on memory alone) and yelled to Erik that I was on it. He had had too much, I guess. He continued on down the overgrown wash, heading for the powerlines instead. I wasn’t impressed. It was his idea to take this route, not mine.

I didn’t know if he would even want to continue on with me, but I offered to ride with him to Vail. We rode the AZT for a bit, then turned off on a gas line for the creek. The creek was rock hard, so we followed that before he decided to get out of the creek in favor of a powerline. We fought through trees and up a steep slope to get out of the drainage — a much harder hike a bike that what I had taken us on.

We ended up riding the train tracks into Vail, where we parted ways.

Erik finished his ride, Canada->Mexico, a few days later. He calls it the “Great Western Trail Expedition.” A great trip, but he definitely did not ride our Arizona Trail route. (Not that there’s anything wrong with riding an easier AZT route, as long as you are honest about what you ride and don’t ride).

Nevertheless, he completed a nice trip and a nice idea. Great Divide Route to Pinedale Wyoming, then dirt roads through Utah, and roads close to the AZT. Congrats to him.