The Last month or two...

Well, we've gotten pretty behind again-

A quick sum up:

Went to a really cool climbing place south east of Flagstaff

Drove home to St. Louis for a visit

Rode our bikes up to Dubuque IA for a visit

and are planning on leaving tomorrow to bike back down to St Louis.

More in depth descriptions and lots of pictures to come shortly- but I thought I'd just let everybody know we're still alive

Cottonwood-Flagstaff April 9th-13th

Wednesday April 9th:

It was time to move out of luxury and back onto the open road. If we stayed much longer we weren't going to fit out the door, frozen pizza and brownies had become a staple- you don't realize how much you would miss an oven until you're without one.

This is a picture of a giant tree in Frannie's back yard- A cactus garden in the front and then a giant Cottonwood tree in the back - quite lovely

After leaving the Frannie abode we headed back up towards Sedona and stayed at the same spot we had stayed the 1st time through. The clouds were a little more dramatic this time.

and we and kokopelli watched the sun go down

Thursday April 10th:

The next morning we decided to do one more ride in Sedona and headed to the Cathedral trail. It's a 16 mile out and back trail with a fun 2 mile loop on the end. There are some crazy airy switchbacks on the way down, as this guy is illustrating below.

They were a lot more fun trying to go down them then trying to get up them, although both ways were pretty tricky.

And here is a picture of Cathedral rock- not our picture, but a picture none the less.

After a great ride we went back to our car, where we suddenly became celebrities. The parking lot was packed with people, most of whom had travelled to take in the vista, would hop out of the car for a quick picture and then floored it off to the next thing they could cram into seeing before the sun went down. We did do an interview for some old man from Michigan who wanted to show his friends back home "the interesting people he had met", and Mike lent his bike out to some guy who wanted to make it seem like he was a mountain biker. The nice thing out of all of this is we met a nice couple from Jackson Hole WY who said we should come visit if we end up that way.

After the paparazzi we decided it was time to head North, and we hoofed it the 30 miles back up Oak Creek Canyon to a much less snowy Flagstaff then when we had come through a month earlier. We shopped it up, and filled the water tank and drove 7 miles out of town to a climbing area called the pit. The only problem was that the campground was closed, luckily we don't need no campground, and we stayed in the lot right next to the no camping sign.

Friday April 11th:

Here's the view from the camp site- I believe that's Mt Elden

This is Mike standing at the base of our favorite climb- a 5.10 with a tricky overhang part and some hand holds that were as large as monkey bars

The cliff

After a hard day of hot climbing what could you want more than half cooked brownie topped with whipped cream- we call it brownie surprise

oooo aaaaa

A local delicacy

mmmmmmmmm

Saturday April 12th:

The next day we decided to tackle the cliff again and I got a little too courageous. I got about 3/4 of the way up a 5.11 (the hardest route I've ever tried) and could not get past the overhang. Luckily this guy could do it, and he got our equipment back.

You can see, it's no easy move

That night we decided to move down the road and out of the parking lot. The night before had been full of a nice police officer who said he didn't have a problem with us staying there but the forest service might, and a car-full of teens that were shooting beer cans with sling shots. After 3 unsuccessful attempts to open a Coleman stove, and dropping each time, Mike managed to scare them off using the old tactic of slamming the car door- but we decided it was time to move on anyway.

We found a great secluded spot about 5 miles down the road

Riding in Cottonwood April 3rd-8th

Sorry for the lack of updates to our devoted readers-

Here are a couple of videos from the trail we rode in Cottonwood. We liked it so much we ended up riding it for about 5 days. Of course it helped we had a home to come back to in Cottonwood- thanks again to Frannie.

This is the beginning of the down hill section of the trail- and I actually got to wear the camera this time. It's pointed a little high, but you can get the general idea of what is going on.

Part of what made the trail so fun was the amount of variety in the ride. This is one of the flowey sections with fun swooping turns.

This is a section that was more rocky and one significant drop- hence the more vibrating camera and funny noises.

And now the big kahauna. It may not look that impressive, but trust me it was- this was the only spot that really made us nervous on the whole trail- each ride led up to this point, but always concluded smoothly. You can sense my relief with my rebel yell.

And the conclusion of the ride. A combination of bone jarring rocks and fast twisty turns.

We were really impressed with this ride, we thought it had a flow that a lot of the riding in Sedona was missing- maybe it was just that we could actually ride the whole thing instead of having to get off the bikes all the time- I suppose that always help the enjoyment factor and the ego.

Financial Report

Michael has been working on a wonderful little spreadsheet to show everyone exactly how much we have been spending on everything. The only problem is we can't figure out a way to get it uploaded onto the blog. Here is a link that might work. Updated as of 4/5/2008.



http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkrKefrl6L0kBalJ_fotkGg

Prescott April 1st-2nd

April 1, 2008

Our next adventure took us up the mountains to a town called Prescott. With 4 out of the 5 trails considered "Primo trails" we decided we must go there.

This is Jerome the "ghost town" on our way up to Prescott

That's me in the commander seat of the mountain climbing machine halfway up and going strong

This is half way up-That's Cottonwood down there

This is the first area we went to ride called Granite Basin. Which had trails everywhere within the area. Very pretty area.

After a nice ride we headed to the spruce mountain trail head to be all set and ready for the next day. There was a campground just past the trail head, and better yet it was free. The only problem was that it seemed that about half the trees were either missing, or marked with spray paint and plastic ties demonstrating that they would be missing very soon. Driving past one other set of campers we found a nice camp site that didn't have too many colorful ties. Mike managed some bad bottom vanagon driving and nestled us in among the pines.

Here's Emilie at our humble campsite smelling the pines in the air.

This is a ponderosa pine as little baby Emilie sees it.

Here are the pines in normal people vision

This is one of the best non-blurry sunset pictures from the campsite

April 2nd:

We had high hopes for the spruce mountain trail. It's an 8 mile loop that takes you up to the spruce mountain viewpoint at an elevation of 7693'. Our good ol' buddy Cosmic Ray rated it a puck 9 and we were excited. I'm sure you know what all this build up is coming to- disaster. We get on the trail, and around the 1st turn there are more plastic ties- this time blocking the trail, with a large trail closed sign. Apparently they are thinning the forest, they claim for its own good, and therefore need to bring in all of their logging equipment all over the trail. The funny thing was that right before we started the trail a park ranger had driven up and put up caution signs, but didn't mention a thing about the trail being closed. Not to be deterred we tried to ride the other section of the loop for a while. This was the part the tree cutters had already been through and wasn't technically closed, but there was so much debris that the trail became impossible to follow. In great frustration we gave up and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of our day. The only way to ride the trail was going to be by going up a gravel road that leads up to the lookout, and hope the loop isn't closed at the top, so that's what we did. I thought a gravel road, no problem- I don't think I've ridden a road so steep on my road bike- it was absurd, and went on forever. After willing away all my possessions in case I wouldn't make it up this thing before my heart exploded we finally made it to the top. Great view, and there was no mention of any trail closure. We hopped on and took off. The trail was great, some really fun technical stuff and all down. Unfortunately when we had made it about 3 1/4 of the 3 1/2 miles down sure enough we ran into the same construction tape, but at this point there was no way we were going back up. Like little cartoon characters in our neon clothes we scurried from tree to tree, dodging the running equipment, hoping we'd blend in, or at least just be confusing bright blurs on the horizon. After a few stressful minutes we were by the equipment and a turn later back at the car. Overall conclusion- I'm really glad we got to ride at least a part of it, and I definitely want to come back and ride the whole thing because it seemed like a great trail.

After some research into Prescott it actually seems like a promising little city. Not too little, about 35,000 folks, a college, riding and climbing near by, and lots of bike lanes. Plus the highs in the summer average in the 80s while in the winters the highs are still in the 50s. Might be a pretty good possibility. What we would do, or if it would be in anyway conceivable that we could afford to live there are still question marks.

After the ride, we planned to hit up another trail in the morning and find a new camping site near it. Some how we never found the road to turn on, so we just gave up on the whole thing and drove the 35 miles back to Cottonwood and base camp at Frannies-yay!

Globe/Payson

Tuesday March 25th:

I have to admit we were both a little surprised when we woke up without incident under the overpass. We quickly had some breakfast (cereal with cold milk- oh we had gotten the fridge working off of the propane, we don't really need it yet, but I'm sure it will be very nice when it gets a little warmer) and headed off towards the trail. We wanted to try to get an early start because we knew we were in for a long day. The guide book described the trail as a 13 mile downhill on killer single track. Sounds perfect, if you have 2 cars- we decided to pedal the 3,000 feet to the top. It was all on a dirt road, and the views just kept getting better as you went up. It was pretty neat biking from desert to pine trees to above pine trees, and neither of us minded the climb. Well at least not until the last 3 or 4 miles, by that time I was pretty ready to start going down.

After 2 hours we were finally at the top (no pictures cause we didn't want to chance crashing on the camera) and we started into the snow- 85 degrees at the bottom and snow at the top. The whole first bit was hundreds of feet of calf deep snow, not solid enough to ride on, and yet not melted enough to ride either. Then we got to a barbed wire fence- I'm thinking this is gonna be a long 13 miles. Mike steps over the fence with the grace of a gazelle, and I'm stuck there puttering away with my mini legs. I got the bike over and then one leg, as I'm stepping the other one over my first leg pushes further into the snow and sure enough that barbed wire dug right into my hamstring. It wasn't particularly deep, but we exchanged some words all the same. As I caught up to Mike he wasn't all that sympathetic, and asked me why I didn't just open the gate...to which I replied "gate? that was a gate? AAARRGH"

So not the greatest start, but we were sure as we lost elevation the snow would go away. The only problem was anytime we got out of snow and could get back on our bikes we would turn the corner and there would be a giant tree down in the middle of the trail. This went on for quite a while, get on coast 10 feet get off hop over a tree, another 30 feet on the bike, off for a tree. Every now and then we could actually get a feel for the trail- and it was great, tight twisty single track that was super narrow in parts- tons of pine trees and these crazy fun switchbacks. But then there would be another tree. There was even a time that we completely missed a turn because there were 3 ginormous trees in the path right as it turned. We climbed over the trees and kept going straight, to our great confusion- we were hoping no one could ride this stuff. Oh and the other thing, we were supposed to be going down the whole time, but every now and then this all down hill trail would have a super ridiculous climb- during these times I was not so sure my legs were gonna keep spinning.

So anyway, what we could ride was great, and we were getting excited to be getting out of the trees into the rocks so there would be less dead fall. However, I was following the bad habit I sometime get into of watching where I don't want to go, instead of where I should be putting my wheel, and was having a bit of a rough time. Meanwhile Mike is having a blast hopping and dodging and generally being a very good bike handler. We got to one point where the trail narrows and if you stray, the ground just crumbles and takes your wheel with it. Sure enough that's where I was watching and where I put my wheel and slammed my left hand down on a very solid rock to catch myself. Painful, and frustrating, but not all that bad. After some encouraging words from the other, reaffirming the fact that I am not the worst mountain biker in the world and so on, we were flying down some more boulders over a couple creeks and down down down.

I was trying to stay with Mike, through a relatively non-technical section, when suddenly he hopped over a rock, landed, and then got thrown 3 feet in the air, slammed down on his side and skidded for another 10 feet. We had been going pretty quick, and he was a little slow to get up and walk it off. The only good thing of the crash was that he was still wearing arm warmers, and they likely kept his left arm severity down to a deep 3 inch abrasion rather than a bloody mess. We pretty much limped down the rest of the trail. Intent on finishing it, but not truly enjoying it quite as much.

Then suddenly we popped out at a campground (glittering in the sun because of all of the broken glass) and couldn't find the right trail to get back on. There was a road, and there was a different trail, but our trail was no where to be found. We were really stuck, not having any idea where the other trail went; the last thing we wanted was to end up back at the top of the mountain. We decided to take the road down, and hopefully meet up with our trail, but we never did- just went about 8 miles on the road- very disappointing. And then once we got down it wasn't even the right road, so we had to ride our bikes another 6 miles on dirt roads- half of it up (I wasn't very happy) to get back to our car.

We took a very relaxing shower in the stream that we parked next to, and decided to set up camp for the night.

Wednesday March 26th:

We spent the next day healing our wounds and hanging out at the Globe library. We went across the street for lunch to this little Mexican restaraunt. I got enchiladas for 3 dollars mmm- and we got horchata too- it was really yummy. We wanted to ride the next day, so we headed towards Payson AZ.

Payson seems like a nice town, a lot bigger than I was expecting, and pretty piney for Arizona. We headed for the Mogollon Rim to find the trail for the next day and camp for the night. It looked promising. The site we picked was pitch black and surrounded by pine trees. We built up a big fire and had a nice dinner under a thousand stars.

Wednesday March 26th:

Looking forward to trying out another trail in pine country we got on our bikes and rode the 2 miles to the trailhead. The trail started on the other side of Christopher Creek, which was swollen with snow melt, making the crossing a bit harrowing. The water rushed by under the logs we walked across, and it looked awfullly chilly. According to the book the 1st 2 miles generally take about 30 minutes. The only thing I can figure out is that he is just lying. There wasn't much snow here, but it is obvious that it hasn't left that long ago. And somebody was using the trail when they shouldn't have been. There were 8 inch deep horse prints all over the trail, and it was just a mess. It had obviously been very muddy, and had since dried up very hard. There were points where I would be pedaling, I'd fall into a horse print and my wheel would just stop. The ground was so hard that climbing in and out of the prints was 10 times rougher than the rocks.

Those same 2 miles that were supposed to take 30 minutes took us 2 hours to get through, and the trail was 20 miles long. The worst part was that the loop is really a lollypop and we would have to ride those first 2 miles back at the end. This riding was pure tortue and we decided that as soon as we could bail to the road we would. We got on top of the ridge and the trail improved a little bit, but it still wasn't great. Mike was really feeling it from his crash, and everytime he would hit a bump, especially one of those dreadful hoof pits it would painfully bounce him around.

So we're tryin to get off the trail as soon as we can when suddenly my bike wheel stops spinning. I stop immediatley and call Mike back to look at the damage. I had run over a large stick and it had managed to not only wedge itself into my derailleur but bend it in the most underailleur position I had ever seen. Mike the mighty magic master worked on the thing for 45 minutes when suddenly boom he snaps it back into place, and then gets it working perfectly. I was amazed since I was hoping to just get it ridable enough that we could get it back and then most likely buy a new one.

Finally we got off the awful trail and had a nice 6 mile ride back to camp, which was actually some of the most enjoyable riding we'd done that day. We decided to stay the night in our nice site and then move on to better trails in the morning.

Mike in a hurry to get the fire started

Our nice piney view

Still working




Mike and I had a face off to show our displeasure about the trail, who do you think won?

Friday March 28th:

We decided that after a couple of rough trails it was time for some rest and relaxation. Cottonwood was our destination, back to Frannies, the nice lady who let us stay in her house, and time for some showers! Enjoy the pictures.

Oak Flats Campground March 17th-24th

March 17th:

Monday morning came and we happily brought the car in to the shop- although the clutch still wasn't as bad as it was in Tuscon it seemed to be on its way, and we were excited to hopefully have it taken care of for good. We dropped the car off and biked over to the library and sat around most of the day waiting for the car to be done. They called just before 5 and $250 later we were on our way again. So far everything has been cooperating (cross your fingers for us). In celebration of the car functioning again we bought ourselves Little Ceasers and feasted.

The next course of action was to head out of Phoenix, but not too far- so that if the car started acting up again we could get it back without too much trouble. We decided that Queen Creek Canyon was the place to go. We got in late to Oak Flats the free campground and were surprised to find it very full on a Monday night. Strange, but for the moment didn't think too much of it...

Tuesday March 18th: Home



Oak Flats seemed like a nice enough place- so we decided to settle in for a while. It was the first time we filled the vans 13 gallon water tank, did laundry and filled our camp shower (thanks Amber!). When we went to town to fill the tank we got a little excited about being in one place for a while and bought all sorts of heavy food- like chicken breasts, avocados, and tater tots. Then we got to the dairy section, and milk was $1.80, we just couldn't pass that up. So we trudged back up to the campsite with one very full car. We cooked all the chicken over the camp fire and feasted once again.



Sunset from camp

So as we're sitting around the fire getting dinner ready, we begin to notice that this campground doesn't really feel like a campground. I had the distinct impression that these people around us were not camping at all. It was more like we were in the middle of some glorified trailer park, and we were just passing through these peoples homes. Weird enough, and then about 8:00 pm a school bus pulls into the campground. They pull up about even with our site; the door opens-and teenage kids just start spilling out the door and scattering. These kids just started running towards various campsites and behind trees and stuff. Mike and I were both watching in awe. As far as I could tell they all seemed to be urinating. A few minutes later everyone piled back in and the bus drove further back in the campground. We never figured out what it was, or who was driving the bus- but they were gone by morning....verrry bizarre.

March 19, 2008
Today we had the crazy idea to ride our bikes down a mountain to the pull off for the climbing area called the pond. After waiting for the semis and the hauling trucks to barrel down the hill we saw a clearing and it was our turn. After 3 or 4 swift pedal strokes we let gravity take over and we were on our way. Even with danger lurking it was hard to wipe away the giddy look I had on my face as the wind contorted it. Luckily we didn't get passed by any trucks because there was no shoulder, just a guard rail with a few dents in it (probably other less fortunate bikers).

We arrived unscathed and anxious to get on the rock, which was welded tuff. For all you non geology folks out there it is a fairly fine grained rock which consist mostly of ash spewed out of a volcano and welded by the heat and lithophied as it cooled. There are some more coarse grained fragments scattered throughout, just enough to tear up your hands (very sharp rigged stuff).

The climbs were a 2 minute walk off the highway, but still in a really pretty place. Looking at the guidebook like 2 lost fools, we spent most of the afternoon just wandering around. By the time we finally located the specific climbs we were looking for, we decided that it would be best to just enjoy the view for the day and come back the next and start climbing. The reason it took so long to find it in the first place is that you practically had to climb up a waterfall to locate the upper pond. There was a well hidden rope and ladder drilled into the rock that takes you up there. It was really neat, but even with the rope and ladder, a little scary because you were so high up.

Once you got to the top, this was the view that greeted you, another 50 foot crystal clear waterfall.

The water was very refreshing-bordering on brain freeze

That night as we sat around our picnic table someone started walking towards us in our site. We didn't think much of it at first, seeing how this seemed to be a pretty common practice throughout this campground, (everyone just seemed to wander through everyone elses sites, another rather strange thing). However, in this case this guy was actually coming to talk to us, not just pass through as had been the case previously. He asked if we were climbers, and asked if we would want to go climb with he and his wife tomorrow. We agreed to meet up in the morning.

Thursday March 20th:

We went back to the pond, with our new found friends Dave and Chris (the friendly couple we had met the night before). They are a mostly retired couple from Colorado who have been climbing for about 6 years. Now that we knew where to find the climbs it was a lot easier and we spent most of the day there, although it got pretty darn toasty by mid-afternoon. We ended up doing 6 climbs that day ( a 5.6, 5.8- with bolts really far apart, 5.10b-top rope, 5.7, and another 5.6), which is quite a lot for us. Climbs range from 5.4- 5.14, with a 5.11 being the hardest climb that I could ever ever conceive trying to climb. Usually we're lucky if we get 3 climbs in.

However, 2 months ago Mike was apparently playing too much soccer in his sleep, and woke up with a pulled toe/ball of foot area. He found out pretty quickly that it still really hurts and wasn't able to do as much climbing as he wanted to.

That little ant like critter is me scrambling over some ledgy stuff to cross the lower pond, Emilie is taking the picture from the top of the falls which we had to climb up to get to the upper pond.

The group with our welded tuff climbs in the background.

After a fulfilling day of climbing we headed back to town to fill the water tank again (we had done lots of laundry) and bought some essentials, tp, more laundry detergent, cosmic brownies, and about 500 lemon cookies.

Friday March 21st:

Today we moved on to a different wall in the same area. Instead of the pond we went to an area called Atlantis. We did another 4 climbs there (5.6, 5.7, another 5.7 on a fin, and a really tall 5.8). The fin was actually really scary because you had to climb up some rubble to get to it, and then started it about 30 feet off the ground without any protection until you reached the 1st clip- with only jagged rocks and sharp trees to break your fall-luckily everything went smoothly.

Me climbing up a strange 70 foot 5.8

Saturday March 22nd:

With Mikes toe still bothering him we decided to take a day off from climbing and just relax around the camp site. Big mistake, there was no relaxing to be found. An entire Hispanic village had moved in across the way and were fiestaing from 9pm Friday onwards. Then just down the block there was another family reunion in full swing. There was so many people crammed into this campground that the screams of young children were bouncing off the surrounding cliffs with that echoing affect of being at a swimming pool. To try to get away from all this for a bit we decided to try out an ATV trail on our bikes, not expecting too much, but figured it was better than sitting around listening to blaring country tunes. (The following night it had been blaring mexican polka and moved on to the twangy stuff early in the morning). The ride was actually ok, and the best part was as we were riding back along the road we found another campsite, much more secluded than in the campground. So when we got back to our site we loaded up everything and ran down the road before anyone else could take it. We arrived and thought we were safe, until we saw this jeep parked at the very bottom. We knew we were in big trouble because undoubtedly our space at the campground would be full by now- but luckily the jeep wasn't staying and we had the place to ourselves.

New camp site we had to ourselves- yay!

Every now and then we would go back and check on the campground, and use the potty, and boy were we glad we had decided to move on. Apparently Easter weekend is the 4th of July of the Southwest. As more people moved in, so did more ATVs, even though the campground clearly states that they are not allowed. By the end of the weekend it looked like someone had just leveled the place- it was pretty sad really.

Sunday March 23rd- Happy Easter:

Mike and I had decided that we would spend one more day in the area and then it would be time to move on. We went back to the upper pond again and did 3 climbs (a 5.6, 5.8, and a 70 foot 5.10). To make things extra fun for the ride back up the hill I accidentally fell in the pond. The worst part about it was that the rocks were so slippery I couldn't get myself out, so I was sitting there splashing around for a good 15 seconds before I could set foot on dry land.

Mike getting ready to tackle that wall

The top of the 5.8- Mike was so strong he actually pulled a hold off the wall on this one. ARRRGH!

Kermit Rappels- sorry you'll have to turn your head sideways for this one

This is a picture of the 5.10 (pocket puzzle). That's not me climbing, it's just a picture from the internet, but that's the one I climbed, so I feel cool- I led it too, which makes it a lot scarier, just to brag.

To celebrate Easter we had a wonderful dinner of potatoes and canned vegetarian haggis. Which to both of our surprise, was really tasty. The surprise was because it kinda looked like dog food, but tasted delectable- a recommendation for all.

Monday March 24th:

We spent the morning doing chores and using up the water in the tank. Next destination, Globe Arizona- a mining town with an epic downhill mountain bike ride. We packed everything up and were on our way, stopping only to get more cheap milk. We got it for a dollar, 1$, can you believe that? We did a milk dance for quite a while.

It was beginning to get late by the time we got to Globe so we had to figure out where to stay for the night as soon as possible. We followed a highway into the National Forest, sure we'd find something around the bend. 20 miles later we finally happened on a dirt road and pulled over. As we got out of the car, we weren't so sure. All the trees were pointing down, a sure sign that it was going to be a creepy night. (Trees pointy up mean happy little birdies and sunshine, trees pointing down obviously mean terrible witches and monsters). We decided that we would just tough it out, and built a big ol' fire to keep the evil things at bay. Plus we had never camped under an overpass before, and any true homeless, should at sometime in there life.

Creepy homeless campsite

As promised the night was full of creepy, chains being pulled, water splashing noises. We made sure all the doors were locked that night.