Whoa, almost a year, really??

I looked at the date on my last blog entry and realized that it's been almost a year since I last posted.  Admittedly, I've done relatively little on the Mesa Canals lately, though I rode in the Ride the Vortex Arizona MS Society 150 ride last weekend.  It was a good ride for me, with a metric century, then a 30-mile distance over the two days.  The event was marred by a fatality on Saturday, however.  I did not find out until Saturday evening, because I did not ride that part of the course, though I have ridden that road in previous years.  The Society did not put out specific information, so I won't either, though this has been reported in news outlets.

I've also been catching up on my reading during the last two weeks out of school.  I decided on a whim to re-read Ed Abbey's Monkeywrench Gang (MG); the introduction to the edition talked about it as one of the great social issue novels of the U.S., comparing it to Uncle Tom's Cabin (UTC) and The Jungle.  Having read UTC, I can now categorically state that MG is the better-written novel by far; many of the Southwestern wilderness descriptions are positively lyrical, and as I re-read it, I also notice the classic satiric construction--there are no heroes without serious flaws in this book, and it's the case that nothing changes for the better on this issue in the book, either.  Hmmm, too much like real life?

So, why did I resonate so much more with the book this time?  (This isn't to say that I didn't resonate with the book before, given my love of the wilderness.)  But this time I personally knew the landscape Abbey was describing, having backpacked, hiked, and explored the Arizona desert for 22 years now.  When I read it first, I was living in Michigan, and the environmental degradation issues were of a different order.  It's also hard to find Western-scale wilderness anywhere east of, say Kansas and Nebraska.

Plus, now, I'm old, tired, and jaded (a regular Doc Sarvis), so the satiric structure seemed more appropriate.

Mesa Canals 11 Attempted Canal Route to Mesa Riverview (Danger, Will Robinson!! Abort! Abort!)

I have had a dream . . .  Several years ago, when light rail came to Main Street and Dobson Road, I thought that I'd be able to cycle from my house to the station and ride to 19th Ave. and Camelback in Phoenix.  That dream died when it took me a total of 2 1/2 hours to traverse a distance that takes, at most, 45 minutes by car.  The final nail in the coffin occurred on May 30, when I scouted the canal route that I thought I could take.  Those few of you who have followed the Mesa Canals series, have also followed me to Hohokam Park via the canal roads.  I thought that it would be great to take the canals to the light rail station, though I never tried it.  I would have been wrong.

Now that the Cubs are moving to Wrigleyville, I thought that I'd still like to bicycle to Spring Training as much as possible.  So, I checked that stretch that I hadn't ridden yet, from Country Club Drive to Rio Salado Parkway (formerly 8th Street).  The Google Earth route photo tells the essential story.

It's probably germane to say at this point that the route above connects to the route in the Mesa Canals 3 post a couple of years ago.  Anyhow, since I've started this series, Mesa has steadily improved right-of-ways on the canals.  Several of the routes that were rough when I wrote about them have now got paved sidewalks, pedestrian bridges, and in some cases pedestrian crosswalk signals.  Such is the Mesa Canals 3 section these days.  It's a civilized ride through the city.  However, when one gets to Mesa Drive east of Country Club Drive, there are no crosswalks, and one finds an ironic situation--one side of the canal is macadam-paved (and gated), marked on Google Earth as "A Street."  The other side is gravel. Take that side (though it doesn't matter).  After crossing Country Club, you will see that one side (the golf course side) is securely fenced, though the other side is not.  The south side of the canal dead ends at an SRP pumping station at the edge of the golf course.  It's a tantalizing view, with a pedestrian bridge visible just on the other side of the secure fence.  That part is not marked on the picture, since after finding the dead end, I did some poking around to find a way around the country club to the north.

I finally found my way to Alma School Road north of the country club, riding on pavement and sidewalks the whole time.  I don't recommend it.  One either rides on the sidewalk, or crosses Country Club Drive twice, if one rides on the street.  So, anyway, I ride south on Alma School to the entrance of the canal.  This is where the map starts.  The south side of the canal is clear to Rio Salado, and gravel.  On the north side, there is a pavement, but this pavement dead-ends at yet another SRP pumping station, though there is a track to a parking lot on Bass Pro Shop (!) Drive.

So . . . I crossed Alma School, and headed east on what I thought was the north side of the canal.  There are a complicated set of canals and spillways in this area, and I ended up having to cross (illegally?) an SRP dam to keep on the north side.  This right-of-way backs onto a number of low-walled back yards, some with Rottweilers in them.  I had the alarming view of a Rottweiler head appearing and disappearing above a 4-foot wall (barking wildly the whole time, of course).  But it didn't matter, as the canal dead-ended at the country club fence.  Back past the Rottweiler, and avoided the dam crossing by taking an alternate path back to Alma School.  After that (since the south side of the canal was basically fenced off) I gestalted my way paralleling the canal via roads as best I could, looking for a way back onto the canal path.  Didn't find one, but I did find the new Mesa Grande ruins museum entrance (open at 10 a.m. Mon-Sat.).

My take-aways are these:  my dreams are dead (or at least moribund)--my dream of finding a direct canal-road route to the light rail, and my dream of cycling to Wrigleyville as I've cycled to Hohokam.  But I do see that the city is working diligently to improve more and more of the canal right-of-ways.  Let's be honest, S . . I mean, Leisure World has been cursed in this blog, for their high-handed blocking of canal rights-of-way.  I'll hold off on the Mesa Country Club, however, since they've certainly been on the site for a long time, and when they began, I'm sure that no one could have guessed that future suburbanites would attempt to use the canals as bicycle routes.  It would, though, be nice if they opened up a bank right-of-way.

2013 MS 150 Arizona-Ride the Vortex

First, the good news:  NO SNOW (or sleet, or whatever that was last year)!  The weather this year was beautiful, with temps in the 80s to 90s (F).  As one would expect, the course was  beautiful, beginning in Cottonwood, with views of Jerome on Mingus Mountain to the south, and long vistas of valley, the Mogollon Rim to the east, and Sedona to the north.

The bad news (if it can be called really bad) was that they had changed the course from last year, and there were some sections of out-and-back that weren't well-marked.  As well, they had kind of shorted the courses (96 miles for the "century" day, and 48 miles for the 50-mile day).  Thus, I ended up going about 74 miles on Day 1 (see the map above), with numerous "technical difficulties."  Besides missing one of the out-and-back sections in Oak Creek, I accidentally turned off my Garmin for about 2 miles in the middle of the course.  Nor did my Oakley Bluetooth sunglasses really work with my new (dumb) cell phone.  But Chris, Nate, Tana and I (the other three were sightseeing Sedona) did manage to rendezvous in Sedona, just south of uptown at a roundabout (see below).

We also ran across each other as I was riding the out-and-back through Boynton Canyon.  A great day altogether, though the Boynton Canyon section was pretty gnarly in spots, with short 15% grades.  As well, at rest stop 3B, a microburst sent a large and heavy canopy flying.  I ducked, but another rider tried to restrain the canopy, which flew anyway and knocked down two volunteers.

We had had supper at L'Auberge the night before, so I was fully carb-loaded (even after having main course venison).  What a setting, dining creekside under the lights, with great food and company. 

We also routed down through the side road to Oak Creek Crossing State Park, near where Chris and I had stayed at a guest house, which ended up not having direct creek access, though it was a mere 200 yards from the creek itself.  That side road included about a mile of gravel.  All in all, a wonderful and short day of riding, with just a little slogging in Boynton Canyon.

Here's the day 2 route, which ended up being about 46 miles long according to my Garmin, though the route description pegged it at 48.  This one ended up being almost exactly the same as last year, going through the wine country of the Verde Valley, and having an out-and-back to I-17 (though this year, we didn't actually have to ride the shoulder).

I could wax lyrical about the scenery, which was great, but instead, I'll talk about what struck me most this year--pavement types.  I had forgotten how, on long-distance rides, seams in asphalt or (especially) concrete roadways can bang the heck out of hands and arms.  There were many bumps and narrow shoulders in and around Cottonwood; these smoothed out once we were off 89A and onto country roads like the Cornville Road.  I find that I remember the route primarily in terms of three things:  roundabouts (good and interesting intersections in both Sedona and Cottonwood, though drivers seem not to be able to figure out how to use them and signal their intentions, as they do in Great Britain), road incline (which, in concert with tail- or headwinds did the most to slow riders down or speed them up), and surface.  The gravel section was less gnarly than I had thought it would be, and I remembered my daughter's boyfriend, who had ridden the Apache Trail (circa 100 miles, about 20 of it gravel in the middle of nowhere) when he visited for Christmas this year.  89A, outside the seams in the asphalt close to Cottonwood, was freshly tarred and graveled, Macadam fashion.  I'd forgotten how rough those tar-adhered bits of gravel could be.  Regular asphalt is much smoother.  Interesting the things one thinks about on long rides.

I seem to have gained either better fitness, or mental toughness, or both (or neither) this year.  Why was the tour so smooth?  Was it the weather?  My fitness?  My ability to lean into pain?  My missing some turnoffs?  In any case, this ride was one of the most enjoyable I've had at this event.

New Years 2013: Ruins in Agua Fria National Monument

I almost uploaded the Google Earth picture of our route, then checked the Agua Fria National Monument website.  Turns out that this is not one of the ruins whose location they want publicized.  So, you'll have to explore on your own.  It is interesting, though--if one magnifies Google Earth enough, one can see the dim outlines of rooms, along with some apparent terrace outlines on adjacent slopes.  This ruin stands on a hillock in a river canyon, protected by steep slopes on all four sides.  Only one side is relatively easily accessible.

Supposedly, the inhabitants had contact with the Ancestral Puebloans and the Verde River people (Salado), according to the Agua Fria website.  Supposedly one can see pottery from these neighboring groups, but the potsherds we found thick on the ground at this site were all undecorated everyday ware.

This was approximately a seven-mile round trip from the Badger Springs parking area along I-17.  It was a great day:  hiking with friends (all of whom had been to this site before) and Chris, and Ranger the dog, who had a strenuous day of it, since we bushwacked through a canyon floor on part of the way back.  However, he did find a nice deer leg with some hair still on it (yum/yuck) that he carried for about a mile before dropping it.  (Thank goodness he did; I wouldn't have wanted it in the car.)

Besides the potsherds, we found a number of petroglyphs.  At least one might have been made later (the interesting shape with the cross inside [below]), but petroglyphs are ubiquitous on  Perry Mesa.  The weather was perfect Arizona winter:  maybe 45 to 50 degrees most of the day, but dropping quickly as the sun went down. We had to cut short our post-hike beverages and snacks because of the cold.

I leave you with a picture of one of the rock walls that are all that are left of the pueblo, which looked to have about 20 rooms.  From my observation, the massed room block walls (field stone stabilized with mud]
(see http://www.arizonaruins.com/afnm/main_afnm.html) were erected over excavations as well, making this a sort of pit house arrangement like Mesa Verde in Colorado.

"Mesa Canals" 10--Scouting Reports and a Birthday

The First Scout--Downtown Gilbert on the Sun Circle Trail (The Good)
OK, the title is in quotations because we're now out of Mesa proper.   We decided to take a quick trip to Gilbert downtown, so that Chris could have the white pizza at Liberty Market (unsolicited promo of Gilbert begins here).  There are great restaurants in the vicinity of Gilbert Road and the water tower, and there are now even food trucks beginning to gather in the parking lot north of Oregano's on Gilbert.  We keep meaning to try the other restaurants, but remain loyal to the dishes we really love at Liberty.  Not bad for a downtown about two blocks in length (a legacy from little Gilbert the farm town), to have become a hub of East Valley eating.

Anyway, while Chris walked the dog, I did a quick scout of the canal trail that runs east to west north of the downtown area.  Interestingly, the signage talks about this canal trail as being part of the Sun Circle Trail, a circle trail that will connect all county parks in Maricopa County.  Here is the latest map:  http://www.maricopa.gov/parks/maricopatrail/pdf/2012maps/regional-trail-11x17.pdf.  This turned out to be a perfect easy canal ride for anyone--flat, scenic, close to places to eat, and a connector through the whole Southeast Valley.  Looking at the map, one could take the canal roads all the way to South Mountain Park in the west, and San Tan Mountain Park in the southeast.

The two miles I rode began as a kind of double trail:  dirt on the north side of the canal, sidewalk on the south.  All mile-road intersections have signals, making crossing busy arterial streets easy.  Supposedly, the trail turns north and south at Lindsey, but I went out to Val Vista.  The trail there turns into a wide path under some power line rights of way.  Be wary of which side you travel; the dirt side tends to be more obstacle-laden than the sidewalk.

Scout 2--Superstition Mountains (the Bad and the Ugly)

 

We've hiked and ridden the Crosscut trail several times.  The trail itself is technical out of the Crosscut trailhead at First Water Road:  the arroyo bank is steep, and the trail climbs up a rocky slope.  Since the trail is used by horses, the rocks are often worn round.  Once to the top of the slope, the ride is easy to intermediate all the way to Lost Dutchman State Park.  Once past the state park boundary on the southwest side of the Supers, the trail becomes extremely rocky and technical again, but not so steep.  Supposedly, the Crosscut Trail winds through the edge of the national forest, outside the wilderness boundary all the way to the Don's Camp.  I've never followed it that far.

Some trails take off from the Crosscut east towards some hoodoos on the edge of the state park, and I thought I'd seen some cutoff trails that skirted the wilderness boundary to the old Massacre Grounds trailhead.  Ahem . . . I was wrong, wrong, wrong.  First, there were no cutoff trails.  I probably spent 45 minutes covering one mile or so of open desert below the edge of the escarpment.  It is cut by some pretty deep arroyos, and I collected a nasty shin bruise, some cactus spines, some scrapes to the bike, and, ultimately, some cholla balls to the calves, let alone to the tires and brakes of the bike.  It's a wonder that I didn't blow a tire.  Toward the end of this little odyssey, I came upon a clear trail that roughly paralleled the First Water Road.  This trail turned out to be a new version of the Massacre Grounds Trail, that ended at the Crosscut/Massacre Grounds (as I now found out) trailhead.  I knew they had closed the Massacre Grounds cutoff and the parking lot, but I didn't know they'd made a new trail.  I never did find the parking lot.  So much for cutting across country, even country where I basically knew where I was at all times.

The Birthday (the Good, again)

 

 OK, this is kind of a cheat.  I just took my regular route out to Val Vista, which usually nets me about 9 miles.  But Chris believes in king or queen for a day on one's birthday, and this was her birthday.  I decided to see whether or not Fry's was open, so that I could buy her some flowers to wake up to.  Turns out Fry's is open before 7.  There's nothing better than pedaling back in the growing light of morning, with a bouquet of flowers dangling from the handlebars.

Post-Thanksgiving at McDowell Mountains Regional Park

It's one of those gorgeous days in Arizona--80's during the day (really, a little too hot for November), and completely blue.  McDowell Mountains Regional Park used to be the back of beyond for me.  Now, it's about half an hour from my front door (though, to be honest, it always has been).  The park has it all:  I've now ridden there several times over the last five years, most recently with two friends from ASU, who introduced me to an approximately 14-mile loop that gets to the borders of the park.

My loop today totaled about 9 miles (9.14 to be exact--darn GPS technology!):  out the Pemberton Trail from the staging area, essentially west on the Tonto Tank Trail, back to the Pemberton for about a mile, and back to the east and the staging area on the Bluff and Granite trails (via a bit of the Pemberton again).  In general, this is wide-open very wide single track.  There's only one gnarly section, on the west side part of the Pemberton.  I walked it the last time I got to it, then walked it again today.  Next time, I try riding it.  Out on the Tonto Tanks, the upward slope is about 2% on average, enough to keep the heart rate up.  It's 600 feet of elevation gain over the course.  Once on the Bluff and Granite trails, it's downhill all the way back to the staging area.  Again, it's all smooth and clear, but there are plenty of sharp turns and cholla cactus close to the trail.  The rider also wants to get used to hopping wooden water bars, though these seem to have been removed from the Tonto Tank Trail.

But the key element for me is solitude; I met only three people out there today, six, if you count the horseback riders I followed for a couple of hundred yards at the end of the trip.  But to stop the bike for a second, in the middle of this desert valley, ringed by mountains, to smell the sage and other herbal desert odors, is to be clean in the desert.  All is bright and silent, but for the wind.

Mesa Canals 9: A Nice Mountain Bike Route

Here's a route that inadvertently connects to some of the Mesa Canals entries, and also passes the Lehi monument (First in the Mesa Canals series).  I'd just planned to ride out past the monument today, which meant riding out the Eastern Canal (Mesa Canals 2) to McDowell Road, where I doglegged north to Lehi Road.  Ride Lehi as soon as you can, because the orange groves are quickly disappearing into subdivisions.  I predict that by this time next year, the road will be wider, and these subdivisions will be much more developed.  On Lehi Road halfway between McDowell and Val Vista Roads is the "bridge to nowhere" over the North Loop 202 (actually, it crosses to an orange grove)--it achieved a dubious notoriety when the North Loop 202 opened several years ago.  This road is also the Lehi Trail to the monument beside the Salt River bed.

Cross the bridge, and turn right onto the dirt section beside the bridge that is marked as the Lehi Trail.  Watch out for the ruts on the left!  Also watch out for the horse gate through the fence.  The dirt trail parallels the river, with great views of Four Peaks, the Superstitions, and the McDowells, besides Red Mountain (for my money, one of the most scenic trails in town for mountain bikes).

Continue past the monument to where Val Vista Road crosses the freeway.  There is no official public gate to the road at Val Vista, but if the horse stable gate to Val Vista is open, a bicyclist can put his or her bike through the bar fence that borders the stable drive, and just ride up Val Vista.  Cross the bridge and turn on the road Lehi becomes (Thomas Road).  You'll see a "No Outlet" sign.  Where the road ends, the access road for the Southern Canal begins (see Mesa Canals 7).  Just go west on the Southern Canal right of way, until you get to McDowell.

You'll notice the small blip at Val Vista.  I hadn't decided to turn on Thomas road until about 200 yards up Val Vista.  Again, this is an easy ride, and very scenic.