I guess I better get back up on this horse and what better way to do that than start the year off with a cliché post about the new year and how everything is going to be better. The above picture showed up in my feed thanks to Margaret Gibson. It took me a minute to be able to read the small print, but it was by far the best new year’s resolution I had ever seen. And it forced me to make my one and only resolution this year, wear my cape more often.
KB and I decided last year that we were done spending our New Years sitting around drinking and playing scrabble. No, we would go forth and wear our pajamas outside and capes if we had them. Last year we went snowshoeing in Sequoia National Park and then had some beers around a campfire retiring to our beds well before midnight. It was such an awesome way to celebrate that we decided to do it again this year.
The adventure chosen was to finally make the drive down to Black Canyon City and ride the single track that has been in development down there for the past few years. Guy and Chrystal Smith have been telling us about these trails for some time. We have planned on multiple occasions to make the trip, but something has always come up. This year we finally made it.
For those of you who are unaware of or who haven’t been in the know, Black Canyon Trail stretches a good 70+ miles of single track through the Sonora Desert. Lying just north of Phoenix, it’s a perfect mid-winter get away. You know, when those 60 degree days are just getting you down in SG, you can go down and enjoy 75 degree days.
Day one, we headed north. With the amount of trail available to us, we thought it best to plan our rides by time. We had six hours of daylight, so we rode three hours and then turned around. This meant that we climbed for 15 miles. This particular section of trail was extremely well built. It was one of those trails that even when you were climbing it doesn’t really feel like it. Just when your legs start burning, the trail levels or dips and you get relief. This happens over and over and over to the point that you know you are going uphill because you can look down on where you just were but it doesn’t feel like climbing.
Of course, this is the year of rough trails so the last section had been destroyed by cows when it was wet. It also happened to go through a lava field. It was what you would describe as not smooth. But we rewarded ourselves with some Ranger IPA at our turn around point and all was forgiven.
After enjoying our beers and PB&Js, it dawned on us that not only was the uphilling awesome but now we got to go downhill all the way back to camp. This also meant that we probably could keep riding, but we were clear out in what felt like the middle of fucking nowhere and it seemed best to ensure that we made it back to camp before the big ball of sunshine dropped behind the ridge.
It took us 1.5 hours for the return trip. At one road crossing I was waiting for KB when I noticed this sign.
Which doesn’t seem like much of anything until you consider the fact that we were finishing up a 30 mile ride during which we had seen no one. And that brings me to why this area is so awesome. As we were trying to plan out our trip, I could find plenty of maps and mentions but there wasn’t a “go ride this” type of info. After scouring maps and learning as much as we could, we finally phoned Chrystal and she was happy to share her knowledge with us. Without that nudge from someone who had been there, we would have ended up like the couple +1 we had seen the next day wandering around trying to find the Little Pan Loop without any real semblance of knowing where it was.
All this means, there aren’t a lot of people out doing these trails. Even the next day when we rode from the trail head in Black Canyon City we only saw people at the trail head or close to it. It’s just miles of what seems like endless single track. We rode 50 miles and didn’t come close to touching all of this trail. We will certainly be back.
And then as 2014 was pending, we sat around a camp fire drinking beer and bourbon and chatting with the Smiths. We didn’t quite make it to midnight, we just went to bed when we ran out of firewood.
It was with these thoughts of new years, capes and being a force of awesome that the Mooseknuckler’s Prayer came to me, “May your single track be endless and your flask always full.”
Here’s to riding farther, going bigger and pretending that we aren’t getting any older.
Now where’s my cape.
Peace. Love. and Revolution.