Sunday, March 28, 2010

Riding on the Red Rocks

The snow is still melting off the trails in Flag, so today was another ride down in Sedona with Josh. We started out off of Schnebly Hill Road and wove on and off the trail up to a trail called "Cow Pies." We tried to ride up and over some rock formations, but ran out of time due to the amount of hike-a-biking we had to do. But the view overlooking Lower Oak Creek Canyon over Sedona when we finally made it up to one of the saddles was worth it.

From the road.

Only a couple miles into the ride and the Josh monkey already has the best helmet hair I've ever seen.

Rocks. This is where we started wondering where the trail went.

The view from the top of the trail looking over 89A north of Sedona.

I think the riding down there has helped take care of the mountain biking urge for now. Bring on the snow.
Mileage: 8.8, plus about a mile walked.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Wee hoo!

It has been a fun couple of days. A fun weekend, I shall say. Saturday was taken up by a trip out to Grand Falls with Josh, on the Little Colorado River, which gave me a great excuse to charge up the KLR's battery and blow the mice out of the muffler. Those poor mice. With the heavy snow over the winter, I was expecting the runoff to be high, and the falls to be falling nicely. I also hadn't been out to the falls since I was little, so it's something I've been wanting to do. We ended up walking in a circle around the falls from the top to the bottom, taking pictures along the way.






Today was the first mountain bike ride of the season. Josh and I met up with his friend Travis, and we rode the trails around Sedona. Aside from the ragging I caught for being on a single speed, it was fun, especially when Travis munched his rear derailer into the spokes. I think I have Tri set up just about perfectly for me, with the terrain around Sedona being the test I've been dreading. I didn't find myself missing the gears, even with Josh trying to taunt me with his shifters. I didn't have a problem keeping up with his gears.
Mileage: 13.3

Friday, March 19, 2010

Geocaching, and photo dump.

The weather this past week has been beautiful, with the nicest (warmest) days since November. So I've been going on after work rides. Wednesday, I wound up out near the junction of Route 66 and I-40, where the Walnut Canyon access road is. I stopped at an old water tank to take some pictures of the Peaks:
It's amazing to me how much snow has melted. This ride was intended to hit the trailheads to see if they were rideable yet. The answer being no, it turned into a cruise to enjoy the weather. As I was getting ready to leave the company of the water tank, I spotted an ammo can. I picked it up, not having any idea what it was. It was filled with small toys and knicknacks, some with tags, most with none. I ended up taking it home to figure out what it was.

That was a mistake.

So later, as I was rummaging through it, I found a slip of paper identifying it as a Geocache. Something that I was supposed to leave in place for others to find, as well as trade items between different caches. There's more than 500 just in the Flagstaff area, quite a few I've ridden right past. I'd never heard of this before, and now I'd just stolen one named "Old Yeller."

Oops.

So Thursday, I rode back out with the Geocache, and placed it back where I found it, after adding an item of my own, and taking Skins the Frog to give him a little boost further south the next time I go to Sedona. Old Yeller has a story to tell people now, and introduced me to the sport of Geocaching, something I'll be adding to my rides, after I get a GPS.

But, after over 55 miles on Bi in two days right off of winter... Surprisingly, today being the day after, I'm feeling pretty good.

Which brings us to the second part of todays post; The photo dump. I've been snapping pictures on my rides, and have been forgetting to make posts out of them, but I still want to share some of them. So, here you go:
The spring thaw is in full swing, it appears. This was half way up Cedar Hill on the edge of McMillian Mesa, on Wednesday.

A few weeks ago I rode up Highway 180 between snowstorms. The Peaks looked nice from Fort Valley.

I think this was a few days later, TC and I rode out before another storm, when the Peaks had a nice hat.

Due to the really big snowstorm, Lake Mary Road was closed near Mormon Lake, while plows dug out the road. This was on a motorcycle ride.
There was between 2 and 3 feet of snow on the ground at Mormon Lake... Those are fence posts.

The plow berms at Mormon Lake were taller than I am, so I didn't have to kneel to take this picture of the Peaks in the distance.

Not a sunset picture, but I liked the way the clouds looked, sort of like an inverse Aurora Borealis.

Mileage: 23 (yesterday)