September 2008 |
After stocking up on Clif Bars the night before, I embarked on a bike ride of known length but unspecified difficulty. I've been doing my 10 mile round trip commuting to and from UA on a nearly daily basis, but I wasn't too sure where my fitness beyond that stood. Also making me a little nervous was a gigantic hill that I'd ridden in the past which has always completely kicked my ass. That would be near the beginning of this days ride...
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Waking up was difficult as the night could not have been more perfect. My tent was in a rocky cove that blocked all wind, the temperature was perfect for sleeping with no bag or covers, and there was nothing directly above me to block my view of the bright stars. It was one of the most satisfying nights of sleep I've had in a long time (and that speaks volumes since I am a lazy ass who frequently sleeps too much). I'd been looking forward to this run for a few reasons. First, The Gap is epic and always a good time. Second, we were running it North to South which I have never done. Furthermore, we planned to wheel down the wash to the 'Lost City,' a rumored collection of buildings and homes that were abandon mysteriously (I was told the people left all their stuff behind). And lastly, we were being invaded by our FJC-Central friend Cameron who was visiting from Canada! The wash to the Lost City was fun. It had that 'raw' feeling that washes sometimes do. Rocks were just sort of thrown everywhere and the path to take wasn't always well defined as it typically is on a more established trail. (It's worth noting that this wash is a marked trail - randomly blazing through washes is not cool!) There was one major obstacle along the way. The best way down it was across a sort of bridge of rocks, very interesting stuff. Sonic hits it and Jake follows...
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Call this the mega-day! What an outstanding amount of action, planned and unplanned. The day consisted of: - AZFJ and Disabled Explorers at the Tonto National Forest Salt River Cleanup I arrived at the cleanup to find Lance and Heidi ready to go. The national forest people had set up some tents and free lunch awaited us after picking up some trash!
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It was Friday night and I was supposed to be in NE of Phoenix the next morning. It seemed like there were two options: get up early and drive up there, or spend the night wheeling and camp on a trail somewhere along the way. Hmmm.... which sounds like more fun... I decided to camp along Box Canyon in Florence. It's a pretty easy trail that I know very well and camping is plentiful. Running it at night alone was sort of, well scary I guess. My HID's are still off the truck so I had only the headlights to show the way. The light reflecting off the tall, narrow canyon walls and fading off both in the distance and vertically was a spooky. Then there's that whole monsoon season flash flood thing.... I never did see the Boogie Man, though.
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The TrAiLbUs's, SonicFJ and family, microbe, and I met for a day of fun in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. The day promised to be awesome with a few 'firsts' for me including bringing fresh sushi along for munching in the mountains, and having my girlfriend along for her first group 4x4 outing! We head out and stopped to air down on the dirt road leading to the mountains.
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