Farther south

The desert valleys and island mountains of the Southwest have always fascinated me since I first noticed their unique topography on a relief map back in elementary school. The entirety of Nevada, western Utah, a good chunk of Arizona, and even corners of Idaho and Oregon are covered in a seemingly monotonous array of craggy, lonely, and desolate ranges and basins. But as I've spent more time in this part of the world, I've realized that each mountain range is unique in a variety of ways. This past weekend, I had the pleasure of exploring just a tiny fraction more, as well as returning to one familiar area for a bit of bike racing.

The Harquahala Mountains are home to the tallest peak in southwestern Arizona. And as is the case with most big ranges, their size precludes them from being adequately captured in a single photo. And because we were hunting around in dry washes and steep gulches for exposures of a vareity of geological stories, my eyes were focused on the ground and the pointy vegetation that is, well, everywhere.

 

A sleepy owl in a mine shaft, a lone blooming ocotillo, beautiful stretched-pebble conglomerate...perhaps I'll get a few good shots of the mountains when I return to pedal to the high point.

At 5 am the following morning, I found myself pedaling along in a pack of crazies doing the 115-mile Antelope Peak Challenge. It's the first event on the Arizona Endurance Series calendar, and it leaves tracks behind on some of the most remote and seldom traveled sections of the Arizona Trail. It's a spectacular course, and this year, an amazing new singletrack section was added!

That little bump on the horizon is Antelope Peak. The goal is to get there, scramble to the summit, and then continue on for another 20 miles to the north before beginning to loop back. It was a long day in the saddle!

After the neutral paved start, I dove into the singletrack and tried my best to follow the route through a maze of cattle trails and drainages as my lights always seemed to be pointed in the wrong direction. One other set of lights followed closely behind, and after ten minutes or so, I finally found a rhythm and then inquired about who was tailing me. Max or Neil had hammered this singletrack early in the race last year, but it turned out to be Aaron Gulley. Last year he and I spent many hours riding together in a few different long races, so I was happy to find out that he had made the trip out.

We pedaled together as the sun rose, lighting up the new singletrack section with a brilliant glow among the long shadows. Max caught us, and we reveled all together in the beauty.

Antelope Peak grew larger and larger, seemingly far more quickly than it had for me any other time. Before I new it, I stashing my bike behind a prickly pear and power walking up the steep side while eating some apple pie. Aaron and Max were right behind me. The view north from the summit revealed how distant the far point in the course still was, but my legs were feeling great, and I managed to put down 900 calories during the 30 minutes of hiking.

The rest of the race flew by as my legs continued to pound out a steady rhythm. Soon I found myself alone under the warm mid-day sun. The weather was perfect. I turned onto the mind-blowing Ripsey segment and marveled at the trail's path and construction. It's a magical area. At the high point, I stopped for a couple minutes to drink a Mountain Dew, lube my chain, pull the rest of my food out of my pack, and soak in the views of the Superstition Mountains on the far side of the Gila Valley. After 20 minutes of descending loose switchbacks, my tires hummed onto a packed dirt road and the trip back began. Last year at this point, I put the hammer down to see if I could survive 40 miles of a relatively hard effort this late in a race. This year I increased my effort modestly, suffered far less, and in the end, covered that last distance considerably faster. Huh. I also consumed more than 3,800 calories in the 11.5 hours I was out there, which must be an all-time high consumption rate for me in a one-day race! All in all, it was as much as one could hope for in a bike race - a great course, strong legs, good company, and ideal conditions.

This morning, Caroline and I looked over the map to try to figure out what to do before heading home. I was pretty fried still, and my knee a bit achy, so we picked a trailhead marked on the map, knowing nothing about it other than that it was not too far off our route, and headed there. After a couple hours of hiking, we found ourselves marveling at this view:

I guess there's a reason that trailhead was included on the map. Now I've got a day or two to prepare for the next little adventure...