Moving through the desert, reflections & gratitudes (Day going home tomorrow)

 

Today I concluded 500 miles of bicycling in Arizona. I didn't mean for 500 miles to be a goal, but last week I noticed I'd gone over 400, so decided post-hoc that 500 would sound nice for the March month that normally doesn't get much action. I also need to offer an apology to the urban area of Phoenix: I had misjudged you and indeed your bicycle infrastructure is fabulous. You just can't bike to Saguaro National Park like you can in Tucson. But you can bicycle to Tonto National Forest, which is what I did as my final ride this morning.

 

Today was mercifully cloudy, and not the shroudy-cloudy either, but dynamic stretches of cloud that were like colored scarves as the dawn light lifted into them. I flattened down in cruise control, eager to move past the mega-churches, Chinese food, and marijuana dispensaries that make up the shopping plazas in the urban asphalt between Tempe and the mountains. 

 

Plaza life, Mesa

 

 

Morning clouds heading east

 

Eventually more cacti and yellow blooming puffy asters took over, and I climbed up steadily. And then the Superstition and Mazatzal Mountains were there and I pulled off the road because I couldn't even look at them enough unless I was still and focusing. I looked and saw and sketched these mountains into my brain, wishing I could save up how glorious I felt while seeing them, to bring back to the sleeting grey north and all the forthcoming computer work.

 

I rode into the Tonto National Forest, enjoying the looming rock faces beside me, wishing I could say goodbye to each sentinel saguaro, until the bike lane unapologetically disappeared. Trailers, RVs, and hyperactive jeeps were on the road, and I wanted to preserve bicycling for the rest of my life, so I turned around while it was still safe. 

 

I would ride 500 miles

Taking in the mountains, the shapely little teeth of "Four Peaks" visible in the distance

 

During this ride I was reflecting about living life--as cliché as that is--about how being not in a car I could smell the orange blossoms in a roadside grove, how I had a loving fiance to fly home to in Ithaca even though I didn't want to end my trip, how my Dad is so tenaciously moving forward after Mom died. I thought about how the night before I had unnecessarily agonized over what my Best Last Ride would be, reading maps, making test routes, whining to my beloved Matthew over the phone. And when I woke up this morning I just set out east towards the Tonto Forest, realizing that the Best Last Ride didn't exist, I had to make it exist. And if I'd gone north around Camelback instead, it very likely could also have been the Best Last Ride.

 

Yesterday was The Last Best Hike; Adorable Ann and Ritwick and I packed sandwiches and left at an early 6am to hike the "most popular trail" in the Superstition Mountains, Peralta trail. In the car, Adorable Ann described feeling extra special care and excitement making those sandwiches, and I was thrilled to find her putting words around the experience of Preparing for some great outdoor adventure. Filling your water bottles, making a sandwich, picking out the most comfortable pair of socks, these benign tasks get an extra little zing.

 

A dirt road took us from the highway to the trailhead. Dusty, washboard rhythmic thudding under the car, nothing but clumps of wirey shrubs and cacti dotting the landscape with mountains behind. Along the road, campsites of RVs, tents, and various lean-to structures were like little gold rush towns of the modern age, set strangely in this barren sea of cacti and scrub. I am so interested in how I will react to being underneath trees again, when I head back east. You feel bald out here in Arizona.

 

Like the most popular trail in Tucson, the most popular trail here was also in a canyon. I wonder if canyons in Arizona are like waterfalls in New York, they're just the most enticing natural features available and people make trails to them. This canyon on the Peralta trail must have had enough water (though not actually flowing) that there were insects. I never thought I'd be struck by the presence of insects, but a number of weeks without them sensitized me. The small trees were noisy with bees and flies. And the plants! Although rangy, they were green, and I could actually smell them. The smell of green. Conversations from other hikers bounced magnified off the canyon walls, personal lives revealed.

 

 

Peralta Trail

Peralta Trail

 

Everywhere we looked there were beguiling rocks. Huge boulders playing Jenga. Steep flat rock faces, holes making real faces in them if you wanted. All the brown and grey and dusky red and dust, and if you see a flower blooming on one of the hedgehog cacti, it hollers at you, this single blaring magenta event.

 

 

Blaring bloom, hedgehog cacti

 

Halfway up the trail, the rocks looked like an extra large box of Crayons, all vertical and cylindrical. "The rocks have assembled for the Council of Rock!" exclaimed Adorable Ann. It was so obvious why this was the most popular trail in the area, just glorious. The zenith of the hike was a view of a formation called Weaver's Needle, and I cannot even describe or share photos, because nothing will suffice. You just feel so expansive and inspired and capable and awestruck when you see something like that, that something like that exists on our earth, untouched and untouchable by humanity. 

 

The assembled Council of Rock

I cannot do justice to Weaver's Needle so instead I shall do injustice with an empanada comparison

 

If Chapter One of the hike was ascending the most popular trail in easy pleasant glory, Chapter Two--the return to the parking lot--was entirely different; we decided to follow a different line on the map down. If we'd told the ranger, sitting all sun-protected at the parking lot, what we were going to do, he would have counseled us not.

 

Three minutes along the down trail, an older hiker man with a good sunhat and a camelback came upon us. Unpretentiously he announced that we should walk with him because the trail was hard to follow and he knew it well. His manner was kind and we had no argument to refuse his offer, so we fell in step behind him. We all walked along quietly, just random humans weaving around spikey agave plants and stepping over rocking rocks. Then he began pointing out the names of different formations, "this one is Geronimo's Cave", "you can see mine tailings over there if you look carefully". By a half hour into our down trek, we sounded pretty much like an NPR interview as I asked him whatever questions came into my head: "how many times have you seen rattle snakes out here?", "what's the hardest hike you've ever been on?", "how many times have you done this trail?" We learned he was 65, had lived in Phoenix for 11 years, loved hiking and how close the city was to all this great recreation, how when he first came to the desert he finally felt like he was coming home. He hiked with an impressive lightness given a rather formidable girth, floating over the trail.

 

Geronimo's Cave

"Would you like a cookie?" we asked, which you do out of politeness and then people refuse, because that's what happens, but he said "yes please!" and then raved about my unabashedly hippy chia oat butter-free chocolate chip wads. At this point we all finally introduced ourselves, and his name was Ray, and so we called him Guiding Ray of Light Ray.

 

Now the trail was not a trail, it was Ray checking to the left and to the right, leading us up over rock stacks, through dense thickets of dusty green shrubs, around bends that yielded views of rocks shaped like huge donut holes. Then we reached the Devil's Slide. Imagine yourself the size of an ant, needing to crawl down a milk jug, that's what this was like. "Time to do the Boot Scoot Boogie" said Ray with delight and a silly mock-Texas accent, and he demonstrated a crab-walk to go down, keeping your center of gravity low. You also need to just trust your shoes. They know what to do. 

 

Devil's Slide

 

 

No blazes, signs, arrows, or even a path marked this trail. Only occasionally were there little rock cairns along the way, confirming that other humans had passed here before. But we would have been completely lost without Guiding Ray; "there's cairns where you don't need them and no cairns where you do need them" he said.

 

It was now 12 noon and blistering hot, shadeless, just us exposed making our way down rock. But we finally reached the parking lot, which felt like an impossibility when I looked back behind me and just saw piles of mountain. It was exhilarating and exciting and exhausting, and a gift to have met a guide. Thank you, Ray, for your patience and trail wisdom. 

 

 

Happy endings with Guiding Ray

Saught-After Sedona and Phoenix Cycling (Days 13-17)

 

 

My skin is like the back of a croissant; all golden and flakey, I can’t seem to get the dry scaliness to dissipate, because whatever moisturizing substance I apply seems to evaporate before it can soak in. Trying to get the most out of my last couple days of sun here, I’ve bicycled about a 100 miles around Phoenix over the past two days, in 90+ heat. I’m seeing the weather in Ithaca is 43 degrees and raining, so I’ll take it. I wish I could conjure 40 degrees and raining as I’m baking at a cross-walk button next to a triple-wide intersection, cowering in the narrow shade of a phone pole, waiting for the godforsaken traffic to come to a close. Although I am very thankful for the cross-walk call buttons here, as otherwise it would be a deathly game of Frogger trying to make it across any roads.

 

But I can’t really complain about bicycling in Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale, because the local bike shop guy sent me some GPX files to load onto my bike computer so I can happily follow a pre-planned route with lots of glorious bike paths. Otherwise, in a huge new city, how do you even know where to ride?

 

The bike paths I rode today were through a “greenway” (yes! Actual grass! When was the last time I saw that in a desert!?), and they were pleasingly curvy with tunnels to go under main roads. Cruising along them at top speed was the most fun (the farther you go when its 80 degrees the less you have to go when its 98) because I got to swoop around the curves and dive into the tunnels. There were a couple close calls with inattentive people’s dogs, but everybody survived. While I enjoyed cycling thru the upscale neighborhoods of Scottsdale (more money = more pretty shade trees), the concept of having golf courses with watered greens in a desert struck me as preposterous.   

 

Tuesday and Wednesday I took a brief tangent to visit Sedona. Sedona is basically a town inside jaw-dropping scenery and rock formations, like living in a national park or an amusement park (given all the jeep tours available). There are hundreds of miles of red rock hiking trails within the 25 mile radius of the city; a dream to walk out of your Airbnb door and get to a trailhead in minutes. The median home price is something like 700k I was told, traffic backs up daily on the main road, and you can’t get a restaurant table without a 45 minute wait. Sedona felt like Ithaca Commons during graduation weekend, but just all shopping plazas instead of a pedestrian corridor.

 

In Sedona I was lucky enough to stay with a Finger Lakes bicycling acquaintance—her friendliness and having been on two rides together was enough for her to invite me to stay and enough for me to accept—in this most coveted and highly esteemed town. To secure their Airbnb in this dream location, my hostess had needed to book it a full year in advance.

 

About 7 other people—all mountain bikers—were staying at this Airbnb already, and it was a big happy group of people working remotely and riding the rocky trails the rest of the day. There was a single bathroom for everybody, and as soon as someone exited, someone else would dive in clutching their towel. I wasn’t sure what it would be like living for 30 hours in a house full of 7 new people, but I found the mountain biker archetype to be open, friendly, and fun to get to know.

 

The microwave smelled fittingly like a community microwave, all food was available for sharing at all times, a large chain mail sack held approximately 128 granola bars. “Need a snack?”, explained the tall fit man who was living out of his truck on a biking and climbing adventure, “I’m food insecure so I just have a lot on hand.” Someone was making a grilled cheese on the stove, someone else was eating a monumental green salad, and yet a third person was opening both a beer and their computer to research biking options for later in the day.

We were all headed out to Oak Creek for bike riding and hiking after a great deal of logisticizing (which vehicles fit which bikes, did someone pack the cooler, “where’s my clothing bag?”, did everyone fill their water bottles, Craig will meet us there later…). I hiked a glorious gob-smacking and jaw-dragging 8 miles while everyone else rode their bikes over the rocks. The trail took me hugging part way up a looming land feature, and out across a valley I could gaze at other rocks shaped like bunny ears, a big hat, a huge loaf. As I walked, other stunning rock shapes came into view, shifting description as my vantage point changed, then disappearing behind me as new shapes lifted out ahead around a turn. Different hues of red rock made me feel like I was hiking in a parfait. The temperature difference between the shade under the looming rock side and full sun was striking. After my hike was done my shoes were full of bronze dust.  

 

The next morning I hailed an Uber to take me out to the start of Bear Mountain. I had typed into google “most challenging hike sedona” and the internet gave me this. The hike was rated as challenging because of its elevation climb, slope, and the fact that sometimes it was like climbing a rough stone wall. At 7:30am it was brisk and chilly and I needed my puffy jacket. I’d been told how busy Sedona hikes can become, that people have to wait in line on the path to get to certain formations. But I was happy to find Bear Mountain trail with a only a few other hikers on it this time of the morning, and I was feeling zoomy and lifted on past everybody.

 

I loved how much mountain goating this hike took, the combination of foot placement choices, balance, and heft to take big steps up huge uneven stairs. I enjoyed how my brain tracks hushed down and the whole movement turned into a sort of meditation. And when I needed a jolt of inspiration I’d just look up from my focused feet and take in the wide expanse of soaring mottled red formations and mountainsides. Climbing up above it all and looking down at the charismatic red rocks felt amazing.

 

At the top I sheltered from the wind and basked in the long seeing and ate a piece of apple pie. Climbing down took just as much attention, placing each foot fall and trying to attenuate it from being heavy, and I enjoyed recognizing each little chapter of the trail I had ascended through. At the bottom cars now lined the highway, the parking area for this and other nearby hikes had filled, and a jeep tour buzzed by. Humanity was out in the rocks again. I tapped open Uber on my phone and found that I lacked enough service to find a ride back to town.

 

Oops. I got here, and now I needed to figure out how to get back. After 5 minutes of looking hopefully around the parking lot for anyone who seemed to be maybe heading back, I found a band of three hikers coming off the Bear Mountain Trail. I had passed them a little while back. “Hello gentlemen!” I walked up next to them, “are you by any chance heading back to Sedona?”  And thus I bummed myself a ride back into town; I followed the trust-your-gut rule, and I know historically hikers are a trust-worthy bunch. It was fun chatting with new folks, and I was super happy to save the $20 Uber charge too. 

 

After constructing myself a lunch at the AirBnb and saying hi to whoever was around, I walked out the door again to hike one more something before I shuttled back to Phoenix for that night. By the time I was done with Sedona in my 30 hours, I had walked a glorious 20 miles gazing at red rock and filling my shoes with dust. I'm so grateful for that opportunity to visit! 

 

 

 

Grateful to the bike shop guys for pointing me to good riding around Phoenix; I love me a good protected bike lane. 

 

 

   

 

 

 

Scottsdale has money for water, green grass, and pretty palm trees

 

 

 

 

 

Loving the greenway trails through all the parks near Scottsdale

    

 

 

Sedona, with stunning hiking and parfait red rocks 

  

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

The chain mail bag of snacks

 

 

 

View from a switchback on Hiline trail

Climbing Bear Mountain trail had phyllo dough stack sections

"Tan lines" of morning sun hitting the start of Bear Mountain Trail

Being able to look down from above at rock art from near the top of Bear

Rock formation selfie alignment, feeling very amused with myself

"Please shot off the water and the light please" (Days 7-12)

It's been many days since I've written, which I think reflects three things:

1) I am not crossing a province in Mexico as a wide-eyed itinerant voyager, with exotic and often uncomfortable experiences--which indeed make better stories than "I rode my bike and it was great and then had some restful time in the sun"; 

 

2) There are FRIENDS here and I've been spending time in community in the evenings, rather than propping myself up alone to write a blog. In Tucson we spent time with the gregarious and friendly Marilyn--a skiing buddy who un-connectedly happened to be in Tucson the same time as us--who brought us to a perfect sunset location, had us over for fresh squeezed orange juice, and introduced us to her great band of friends. And Adorable Ann and the charming Ritwick, with whom we went out for beer and tacos on the night-life streets of Roosevelt Row in downtown Phoenix, a night reminiscent of erstwhile days: people-watching in crowded outdoor bars under hanging lights, tasting resinous local IPAs, taking goofy group photos, and just being a pack of 4 happy people stepping down the sidewalk and admiring the city palm trees. 

 

3) Mom was undoubtedly my most avid reader, and even when I didn't feel like writing, I knew she was eagerly awaiting any sort of update, and then once I started writing a little gate would open and I'd have lots to say. 

 

Silly group photos

The delicious hand-squeezed orange juice from someone's yard tree

                                  

 

Tumamoc Hill in Tucson, disbelievingly beautiful location for viewing a moonrise; thanks to Marilyn for her insider knowledge and bringing us there

                     

 

Now Buddy Katie and I are in Tempe (aka Phoenix), staying with the accommodating Ann and Ritwick. We left Tucson in a boxy rental car full of our bikes and bike-bags, after sating ourselves on 300 miles of absolutely delicious road riding, having biked over Gates Pass again and done miles more of the flat paved bike paths. After you've returned to the same coffee shops multiple times, and you're supposed to be "traveling", that changes the terms a little.

 

 

Photos don't serve, but Gates Pass is a steep 2.5 minutes of churning steep climb followed by sweeping endorphin buzz out

 

Tucson is one of the top-rated bicycle friendly cities, and it was a pleasure to exist in it. Wide shoulders on even the main through-way streets post "Bicycle Route" signs, and many intersections have a special turn button for bicycles. There were two bike shops within a half mile of us, and plenty more throughout the city.  As far as I could tell, no roads had speed limits above 45 mph, and I couldn't find a highway if I'd wanted to.

 

 

 

One could also pedal to the otherworldly lands of Saguaro National Park easily from downtown, reddish brown land humped in hills, valleys, passes, strewn with rocks and studded with these looming beings of cacti. A saguaro can take 50-70 years to grow its first arm; so a multi-armed giant is a fossil indeed. You feel like you're on a western movie set as you spin past looming giants with endlessly diverse formations of appendages. Gazing across the landscape is like being at a crowded music festival, nothing but the same sort of beings in sight. And just as bizarre looking too. The sense of awe and novelty at this cactus glory landscape-- "I've never been anywhere like THIS before"--never wore off during our time. How incredible. 

 

The requisite We Visited This National Park photo

 

 

Now in Phoenix, as a band of four, we drove to the Superstition Mountains outside of Apache Junction (for name, see: gold miners, Apache native peoples, Mexican miners, massacres, grisly bloodshed, desert spring, etc) for a glorious hike to "Massacre falls". I wasn't tickled about the name and heritage of the place, but the Arizona wildflower book suggested it as a great hike. The start of the hike could not even be considered a hike, because we stopped every 15 feet to point out a flower to each other or photograph a cacti. I felt like a prospector, collecting a photo of each new flower to confirm identification later. Who knew anyone could get so excited about an orange flowering malvaceae plant? We climbed steadily upwards towards the chunky wall of rock towering ahead. There was a formation called Weaver's Needle, an exposed spike casting a long shadow. The Superstition Mountains were like a child had an extraordinarily creative time building a "wall" with Legos, various stacks jutting at crooked angles, a Jenga game here, a vast smooth edifice there. My eyes couldn't even compute the complexity and grandeur of it all. 

 

 

Superstition Mountains

The clouds created even more drama

My prospector's wild flowers happiness

Weaver's Needle

 

 

Our pace increased as we gradually collected the majority of the flowers to see, until Katie spotted our first ever cactus blooming. This was the premier event. Florescent purple, as if the blooms were lit up by themselves. We formed a ring of admirers around this plant. What stunning color; can you believe a plant created this!

 

 

Cacti flower awe

 

Arriving at the end of the hike, the "falls" made me realize how naturalized I am to the plentiful Northeast water. This falls was simple a long dark spot on the rock, the kind you get when you sit with a wet bathing suit. After the monsoons (indeed, this is what local folks call the big rains of the summer, as if we were in Asia) I imagine this would be something to behold. But at the dry moment, it was totally unimposing. Although seeing dampness at all was novel around here. 

 

The "falls" aka damp spot

 

Turning away from the damp spot and taking in the expanse of cacti and rock and mountains and sky and distance was sacred. What a world! My imagination galloped like a horse over all there was to see.

 

As we drove towards the town of Apache Junction, we saw rows of cars in parking lots, hoards of tourists at a recreated "gold rush town." Your classic rusty windmill, a toy railroad, burgers & milkshakes, crowds in long lines for cotton candy or whatever.

 

Farther back up the road on the other side, we opted for Bluebird Trading Post instead. Nothing was in their little dusty parking lot except for 3 pickup trucks and half a dozen horses. The horses waited patiently as their riders--all of whom were in blue jeans, cowboy hats, some variation of blue plaid shirt, and spurs--crowded at a wooden table with a handwritten sign posting "for smokers only." They ate egg sandwiches and bison burgers from the little window ("service window, push"). I felt the parallels of how cyclists leave a pile of bikes out front, like those horses, and have muffins and coffee, all dressed the same in Lycra instead of spurs and jeans. The joys of heading out of a morning to have a treat along the road, no matter what your transport.

 

The Trading Post

 

 

 

A small black and white dog sat expectantly at one woman's feet as she ate fries; she looked like she was straight out of a wild west calendar with her blue jeans, jean jacket, cowskin cowboy hat, turquoise earrings, and sun glasses. As she clopped away on the back of her horse, the little dog balanced like a bobblehead on the horse's butt.

 

Inside the shop, just for fun I put a quarter in the ancient M&M dispenser (never done that before), turned the plastic knob, and got a handful of sugar dust and fossilized M&Ms. I bought some post cards, like you do, and the shop keeper showed us the earrings he made from rattlesnake vertebrae; "I've sold over 600 pairs of these" he told us proudly. A sign on a fence post pointed the way to "The Relief Room."

 

Fossils & Dust

 

 

Sign in the Relief Room

I have a feeling this was much more authentic Arizona than that touristy joint down the road. What a great stop. 

Mt Lemmon, a ride of a life time (Day 6)

Yesterday we climbed the flagship ride of the trip, Mt Lemmon. Instead of loading our bikes onto our non-existent car to drive comfortably to the base, we rode out through the city workday commute. I am loving the ever-present bike lanes in Tucson, even through box store plaza waste-lands. Some of us in the lanes were obviously pedaling to the office, some of us were pedaling to the mountain looming to the northeast.

 

 

 

Riding to the ride.

 

Le Buzz coffee shop, (yes, in a parking lot plaza) is the unofficial start of the ride up Mt Lemmon. Katie Buddy and I piled into the shop, where other be-jerseyed bicycle folks were congregating, eating carbs and caffeinating. Katie was dressed reasonably in a racing jersey kit, while I had on my home-cut arm and leg warmers and looked like someone's high school art project. I received some calculating stares from the serious classic-aged bicycle men.

 

 

Stretches while waiting, and my ridiculous outfit

We chose our carbs from a very attractive line-up; I opted for a huge cinnamon roll, thinking of my sister and how much she loves them. What the cinnamon roll lacked in flavorful cinnamon it compensated for in unregulated sweetness. I did not actually enjoy eating the thing, but I knew I would burn most of it before even getting half way up. My leg started a buzzed high-energy tap; I was eating a bomb. 

 

The pre-ride beauty contest of possible fuel at Le Buzz

 

 

We started up the mountain. Opuntia and saguaro cacti were everywhere, and the road zigged up through them ahead of us. Already I was removing my extra layers, oh mid-morning heat. The grades were about 4-5% on average for the whole climb. We passed a group of retiree-aged cyclists, a couple of whom were on electric bicycles--yay accessibility for all! Other folks chugging up were obviously pros, shifters clicking with that metallic cleanness that comes from expensive bikes. A couple dudes shot past me, one yelling to the other "one second!"; they were working on one of the countless Strava segments. Fifteen thousand people are on the Strava segments around here, what a popular place.

 

Our first tree!

 

After a couple thousand feet, we saw our first tree! A sycamore I think. Something that wasn't cacti. The biome was changing! Climbing this definitely took focus and leg power, but it wasn't so steep that I had to stand on the pedals (ever), I just set myself to Moderate-High for hours and rotated along. That cinnamon bun was excellent fuel, because I forgot to eat my dried dates for quite some time. I had 2 liters of water and I was staying hydrated. The scenery was jaw-dropping, the sweeping valley with the city getting progressively smaller, and rock formations piled above like a giant toddler had been squeezing sand shapes out of a clenched fist. The road twisted through this epic foreign landscape, continuously going upwards. The task very clear, just one road, just churn on up it.

 

 

 

Curving road, rock formations

Jaw-dropping everything

I thought this would be a duet experience with Katie and myself, just the two of us battling up alone. But there were so many other cyclists it felt like a community event, like an organized fundraiser ride, just none of us had bib numbers. As we slowly crept upwards, cyclists in the other lane shot past us on their earned descents, banking deliciously around the curves, wind breakers flapping. Imagine looking at this mountain from the air, all of us colorful cyclists moving on it, like a bunch of ants or bees to the hive and back, doing something greater than any single one of us. And I found I could strike up a conversation with basically anyone. This was good, because Katie wanted to pound up at blow-out speed, while I knew that pushing might ruin my knee and lead to regret. She was out of sight within 2 minutes, while I made a number of friends. I met a guy who had ridden this mountain 40 times! And had a conversation about half-moon cookies from someone who had visited central NY.

 

And then. I entered another ecosystem: the pine forest. Juniper, Ponderosa pine, white pine, fir. Smelling them was as strong as walking through a cloud of someone's marijuana smoke. In the sun it was striking hot, entering the shade was like a blast of air conditioning.

 

 

High up enough for pines now.

 

The "Elevation 7,000 Feet" sign: "oh good, only 1,000 more feet to climb" I thought to myself and then laughed, that is a thought I've never had before. A thousand foot climb around Ithaca is usually The Main Event of whatever ride you're doing. Then I had a religious experience cookie and bummed some water re-fill from one of the many vans for the supported riders. Upward!

 

At about 7,500 feet my right knee felt that pierce of pain that I've known on occasional high-stress rides in the past. I tried to channel the power coming from my glutes rather than my quads, which usually helps relieve the pain. Roadside, a woman cheering committee for another group yelled at me, "GIRL power!" and then added, "hey! You are a stud-ette!" Never got that one before, hehe, I'll take it! Knee, feel that!

 

 

There is snow up here!

There were piles of snow up here, festering away in the shade of the pines. Then at last, the 8,000 feet elevation sign. I'd made it! As I'd been riding my boring trainer in my boring living room this winter in preparation for this ride, I'd imagined breaking into tears at the top. But that didn't happen--I just felt proud and tired and trying to take it all in-- and emotions just don't behave the way you expect; the real end of the ride was actually anti-climatic, after a descent into the town of Summerhaven (there's a town up there!), I found the congregation of all the other riders waiting in line for face-sized $7 cookies at the eponymous "Cookie Cabin". Some Chicago riders (amazingly, who remembered Katie from races 10 years ago) invited us to bunk up at their table, and they let me taste all the cookies. Being in fun, friendly, shared-event community, this is one thing I love about bicycling. I felt excited to be back among my Fingerlakes riding buddies when I returned home.

 

Thank you, legs!

 

The requisite I DID IT picture

 

The hardest part was the unexpected reverse climb in what was supposed to be The Downhill Chapter, getting up out from the town, a part I hadn't mentally budgeted for and my knee was hurting. But the reward after was endless swooping descent. Magically, the road was such that I barely needed to brake, I just floated down at 30 mph. I never thought I'd get inured to descending, usually a descent is so brief and so relished that its like taking an espresso shot. But this was like sipping a huge bottomless mug of coffee. After 10 or 20 minutes I started that kind of day dreaming you get when looking out the window of a bus. The pines, the snow, the swooping views, a soaring hawk. I'd been worried about a chilling cold ride down, but we'd chosen a hot day, so it had been a rare 60's at the top. I still had my arm and leg protection on, to help against wind and sun. This time I was the guy flying by in the other lane as the next set of riders inched their way up. Imperceptibly it got warmer and warmer, and then I saw the return of the cacti again!

 

Swooping descent.

And then the descent was over. It was nearly 90 degrees at the edge of the city and we had to cross 15+ miles of blazing pavement to make it back home. That experience sure wasn't pretty, especially with a now-bum knee, but the promise of a cold beer steered me back. Pleasure after a little suffering is really just divine.

Taking a break in the only shade around.

It wasn't the hardest ride I've ever done (that might go to trying to keep up with 'Team 545' 100 miles around Cayuga Lake last summer with a headwind, or that informal CT gravel race riding up basically stream beds) but I certainly had to focus, dig deep and manage any unhelpful thinking. It was the most I've ever climbed in a single day: nearly 7,000 feet all told. But of all my rides, all over the world, this one goes down--as cheesy as it sounds--as the ride of a life time.

 

Mt Lemmon climb