The Maricopa Trail--Granite Reef Dam to Usery Mountain

 At long last comes an attempt to finish off one leg of the Maricopa Trail, this time from Granite Reef Dam to Usery Mountain Park. I had hesitated to do this section for a variety of reasons: first, much of it is mountain biking, and though I am a road biker, and use my mountain bike for the canal paths, this would have been the first time in several years that I'd been on single-track, and a decade since my last serious mountain biking. Here is the county map of this leg:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/11pM_YsR5eF68XoOSP5vr_tw84vFqUEvf/view?usp=share_link.

Below is my actual route, from a Google Earth map with a GPS track (in blue):

As you can see if you compare the recorded track to the map, I have skipped about a 2-mile section of the Wild Horse Trail. The small tail on the northeast edge of the first loop, before my return to the Bush Highway represents my start on the trail. At the point I turned back, there was a one-way (downhill) sign on the trail that I was attempting to go up. Believing I had made a mistake, I went the other way on the Wild Horse Trail and ended up on the Bush Highway. I took the road up the Usery Pass hill, to the egress of the trail, and followed it west a little over a mile, then turned around, having already done 11 miles to that point. Getting back to the road, I still had about 13 miles to go to get home. I consider that I've now bicycled the route, to the Bulldog Trailhead (the green dot at the bottom right corner of the Google Earth route).

From the Bush Highway, the route turns off onto the Saguaro trail, which climbs to the Granite Ridge Trail. The Saguaro sections are moderately difficult to difficult, as is the section marked in the wilderness as "Twisted Sister." The Granite Ridge section is nice, moderate cycling. There are great views of Red Mountain on this route, and during my ride, the wildflowers were out.

My ride was a bit of a clown show--I biffed twice on easy sections, collected assorted bruises and one cut, and got both slightly bewildered and lost. I walked significant portions of the first single-track section.

The Wild Horse Trail going west, however, was generally easily rideable. A 10-minute video with views and commentary can be found here: https://youtu.be/VQ27vXvz5g4.

As of January 9, I've completed the Usery Spur of the Maricopa trail from the Bulldog trailhead through Usery Park. Some of it has been mountain-biked, but most has been walked.

Going from the Bulldog Trailhead, the trail (for mountain bikes) is easy to moderate until the trail meets the Pass Mountain Trail and the Talon Trail. Until the Wind Cave Trailhead, the mountain biking would be mostly moderate (to me) with some more advanced and difficult sections. We did meet a number of mountain bikers on this stretch, most traveling from Bulldog to the Wind Cave Trailhead.

On November 26, 2024, and again on Thursday, January 26, 2025, we hiked the short section between the Wind Cave Trailhead and the point where the Maricopa Trail intersects the Pass Mountain Trailhead to go west to the west edge of the park.

The map is not clear how the Maricopa Trail gets to the west edge of the park, but on November 13, 2024, I did mountain bike the western leg of the trail beyond the Pass Mountain Trailhead. All of these trails: the Lost Sheep, Moon Rock, Blevins, and Chainfruit (?) are easy rides. What is clear is that the Maricopa Trail follows the Lost Sheep Trail to the park visitor center.