Gila Holiday

Last year’s An Alien Holiday was such a good idea, we decided to do it again.

On Dec. 25, we loaded up the bikes and pointed the car north, to Gila River country.

note the running shoes jammed full with clementines — creative packing!

First we warmed up with a few dirt road miles for gear and body shakedown.

Before crossing the river (Paula conquered her fears, riding straight across the bridge (*)) and heading for singletrack.

(*) plan B was to ford the river, since it was running lower than I have ever seen it.

It’s the Arizona Trail. Incomplete, remote, hard to access, and totally freaking awesome.

Last time I was here the trail was covered in flowers and other greenery. December has its own charms, one of them being open sight lines and fast riding.

Paula joins an elite crowd — those who have actually ridden this piece of the trail.

It’s only been three months since her hip surgery, and now she is bikepacking on remote singletrack! And our loads were anything but light. The idea wasn’t to cover miles, but instead to use our bikes to get us to a spot where it would be quiet and no one would bother us.

So be carried the tent, which we set up in the middle of the trail, knowing there was almost no chance anyone would come by. And we carried the cushy sleeping pads.

We carried tons of food (Pringles arrived at camp at 99.5% integrity).

We even carried a giant no-brainer stove so we could cook pasta, hot chocolate and oatmeal to our heart’s content. This is luxury bikepacking.

We constructed chairs out of rocks, and watched the sunset from camp, sun reflecting off the trickle of a river below us. It was about 20 degrees warmer than last year — just a beautiful still night.

There’s one thing we were unwilling to carry luxurious amounts of — WATER. We planned to stay for three days, and with warm temps and mega cooking, that’s a lot of water.

So my mission, should I choose to accept it, was to leave camp, unloaded, and return with a gallon or two of fresh water. In three hours I could have retrieved water from the car, but where’s the fun in that? I wanted to explore deeper into Gila country, not leave it.

So I moved across the Arizona Trail, traversing high above the Gila River. I pedaled through sandy washes and up steep four wheel drive roads.

There are so many reasons this is my favorite area in Arizona.

After some half-hearted efforts at riding big rocks in Walnut Canyon, I ditched the bike and continued on foot. There’s no trail, but the canyon is a pleasant stroll, which leads directly to…

…one of the best sources of water anywhere near the AZT. I filled up my 200 ounce bladder, then used it as a pillow for a mini-catnap with bubbly spring ambiance.

As I hiked back down the canyon I debated about exploring something new. As these things go, I knew the debate was pointless. I had seen what lower Walnut Canyon looked like from above:

Doesn’t that look like a perfect place to take a mountain bike? My thoughts exactly! I knew there was a good chance that an impassable pour-off would prevent me from making further progress and force me to turn around. There had to be some reason AZT and GET thru-hikers don’t use this canyon, instead climbing the steep 4×4 road I had pedaled over. As they say in bikepacking 101, only one way to find out…

Turns out it was a pretty good place to take a mountain bike. I rode a lot more than I expected and even found some Area 52 style rock. Other stuff would have been rideable with the right mindset/company and without a 12 pound water baby bouncing around in my pack.

I was surprised to find several deep pools with clear water, some running. Makes me wonder if parts of the canyon do not show water most of the year.

A curious rusting piece of metal I found in lower Walnut Canyon

It was a nice mini-adventure, and after a fair bit of sandy riding I was happy to reach the river level and join a 2-track / AZT. My speed shot up and I quickly found myself back on singletrack, headed for camp. I couldn’t believe how warm it was, refueling and sitting around back at camp. I jumped in the tent for shade and looked forward to the sun dropping behind the mountains on the other side of the river. What a December we are having!

Paula left to hike and RUN (yes, RUN!) several times. She got more and more excited with each run, and especially as she’d rest or wake up the next morning without any serious hip pain.

I usually joined her on the way out or the way back in. Yes, I actually went “running”. A little bit.

That’s the only snake we saw the whole time, a tiny but very pretty little guy.

Nights are pretty long in December. We mostly stayed up talking, just spending time together. But we also traded off reading our one book (I forgot mine!) to each other, trying to come up with silly voices for each of the characters in the story.

After several versions of breakfast, it was time to ride back. It was cloudy and a little cooler. Paula rode with much higher confidence, getting pretty far ahead of me several times. She was rippin’ the AZT alright!

She did stop here to point out the “Rambo Cactus Family”.

We skipped the bridge in favor of a different route. Good thing we had 29ers. “I sound like a train!”

There’s a photo of me, to prove I actually rode my bike on the trip, and was smiling — pretty much every second.

We hit La Casita in Mammoth to end the trip in true gluttonous fare. We usually keep it pretty simple when we eat out, but not after 3 days of eating only what you can carry. Horchata, a plate of cheese crisps, giant combination plates and sopapillas. Oh yeah. Thanks for a wonderful trip Paula — somehow it was even better than last year.