"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.

Mea Culpa Disney

This is to Mike Brooks and Bruce Bennett--I now have a Mickey Mouse watch.  It's tasteful, with understated mouseheads etched in orange, and a black band.  But it's been a very different trip with Chris this year than last year.  First, always see Disney with one you love, especially if it's someone who has a good history with Disney.  Yes, the shuttles are still a little slow, and yes, you still can't get anything but Disney coffee within five miles.  But--props to Bruce--you can still get that $14.95 mug that you can keep refilling.  With two (who actually drink from each other's cups), that's even better.

Now, a little Orwell Disney--as we entered the Magic Kingdom yesterday, they had a fingerprint machine on the turnstile (right forefinger only, in the interests of fairness).  Uncle Walt is watching you!

But I now understand the attraction better.  None of the rides were actually cheesy at the Magic Kingdom, and there's a real idealism about the characters that Disney has created.  It's an interesting (and megalomaniacal) goal to create a new and better reality, but the Disney parks really do a good job.  The irony involved in most of the exhibits created a pleasing po-mo feel most of the time.  The only irony-free show was the Hall of Presidents, and the Carousel of Progress was a nostalgic look back to Disney's (relatively) irony-free take on progress (interesting idea, that you could chart the progress of the 20th century through household technology), circa the 1965 New York World's Fair.

Bicycle Telemetry

Got a Garmin Edge 500 for Christmas (thanks, Beth and Steve)!  Now, I've had bicycle computers before, but the level of telemetry associated with this one is exhilarating:  speed (of course), as well as average and max speeds, a record of the route, calories burned, cadence [yes, I got the accessory], heart rate [yes, again].  But that isn't the full picture.  The computer (which is surprisingly well-designed for multiple bikes) also allows one to save workouts and courses, which it then lets you replay to do specific interval/cadence/fitness workouts whenever you need to, or check your performance on saved courses against a standard.

So, what's the issue?  None at all, except that I get entranced and obsessed with the record-keeping side.  I ride early in the morning, when it's still dark, and constantly checking my data threatens to involve me in a crash when I attempt to shift between screens on the computer, or turn on the backlight.  I've become aware that my obsession has some negative elements.

It did take a while to set up the machine--learning how to connect the accessories, configuring the information screens, setting up bicycle profiles, and so on.  But there's more; I personally am constantly tempted to check all my data at any given moment.  One morning, I was so obsessively trying to get all to work right (worrying about my low heart rate alarm, checking my cadence) that I literally did not remember the first mile of my ride.  And this ride crossed a major intersection with a stoplight that has sensor problems, so I'm sometimes forced to cross it against the signal.

One of the reasons I ride early is to reset myself mentally and physically for my day.  I love the routes and views as the light begins to grow in the morning.  I remind myself of what is really important:  experiences in which I am completely present, experiences that enhance my personal discipline and health, experiences of natural beauty, time for spiritual contemplation.  So, I have needed to put my telemetry into perspective as well.  This perspective was helped by the fact that I had inadvertently left my computer at our Mexican beach cabin (where I was using it to map my running workouts--did I mention that the routes can be pictured on Google Earth? See--waaaaay too fun!).  Anyhow, when I got it back (thanks, David and Debbie!), I decided to be more disciplined in my use.  That's another strength of the device; I can turn it on and forget it until the end of the ride.  Now I do that, and analyze my workout later.  If I need to know my speed or my cadence, I glance when the streetlight's on the computer.  But I still need to turn off the audible low heart rate alarm.

Mesa Canals 8: Roosevelt Canal and Maricopa Floodway, University to Baseline

It should have been a lot more fun than this. In Mesa Canals 5 and 6, I rode the Roosevelt Canal to where it meets the Southern Canal. I remember looking southeast from where I stopped at University Avenue, and thinking that the floodway park and canal looked like ideal places to ride. Well . . . here's the approximately 4 1/2 miles from University to Baseline that I rode on Sunday, February 12, 2012. The first half-mile, from University to Main, was still very nice. The path through the floodway is macadamized (the small pebbles are stuck together with tar, making a light road-like surface), and the entrances from the major roads are narrow. I was riding my mountain bike, and always unclipped a foot from the pedals to have a bit more stability as I inched my way between the pipes. I guess that's fine, in that it slows the bicycle traffic and keeps motorized vehicles out. The canal and floodway, however, cross Main Street exactly at its intersection with Higley Road; it takes some looking around to see where the floodway trail goes. A rider or walker has to cross two main streets to get to the side of the road where the trail continues.

It actually crosses behind a U-Mart (see the picture on the right), to continue. The pathway is still well-paved, and some prefabricated senior dwellings actually have yards that front the canal, with no fencing. This must be nice for the older person who wants to walk his or her small dog straight out the door. And there are plenty of older people and dogs, most of them small (the dogs, that is) walking and running through the grass of the spillway. When one gets to the Broadway intersection, however, the true geriatric fun starts. It seems that S . . . I mean, Leisure World has blocked off access to the floodway because they built a golf course in it. I mean, OK, so they were here first, and they basically cordoned off a four square mile stretch of property (so that no public mile road goes through the area, and there's no freeway entrance), but to cut off access to the canal and the floodway? Here's how it is: the golf course cuts off the floodway, so I took to the east bank of the canal. At Southern, the east bank dead-ends at a floodway junction, and the east bank of the floodway is fenced up to the very edge(again, by S . . . I mean, Leisure World), so I cross the floodway junction to the canal access, where the east bank of the canal continues until it is cut off by a fence that stretches across the flat. One can swing around the edge of the fence over the steep part of the bank relatively easily if one is a walker. With a bicycle, it is just a little dicey, though it can be done. So, a tip. Take the west bank of the canal past the Broadway junction, and you'll get along fine until Southern Avenue. (By the way, enlarging the Google Earth picture at the top will give a sense of all the casting about I did, trying to find a route through the floodway. It will also show where I had to cross the canal south of the freeway).

In fairness, I do have to mention that at the golf course fence on Broadway, there is a retention pond of some kind for the course, which contains a flock of white cranes (see the picture at the left). A big flock, and a beautiful sight. Past Southern, I originally went out the west bank of the canal, because the entrance was clearer. It's kind of fun to go under the huge superhighway that the U.S. 60 has become. There's an SRP equipment yard just north of the freeway, and a fenced pump and lock unit just south of the underpass. The West bank of the canal is closed at this point. Thankfully, the lock is not blocked off, so it is possible (again, with difficulty) to walk one's bike across to the east bank. I continued down the east bank of the canal to Baseline Road, where I stopped, seeing new construction of yet another golf course in the floodway.

So, the way to get through most efficiently: Take the floodway to Broadway, then take the west bank of the canal to Southern (there is better bicycle access around fences on the western bank [see below]), then switch to the east bank to get down to Baseline. Really, though, the bottom line is that it was a beautiful day, and I explored several more miles of the canal system.