Day 2 - ride from the unit again, this time getting a little farther north to hit Mescal.
Descended Girdner briefly to go right on Lasso to a left on Stirrup. Took Stirrup out to Girdner, climbing to Girdner's end, going straight to a nice descent on Snake. Here, we finally started seeing some bikers. Went right to the gravel road to busy, paved intersection with Dry Creek Road & Bonyton Pass road. Hit OK trail to the Mescal trail. Out here there were people, cars, hikers everywhere. But, when we headed up Mescal trail, we only saw a few friendly hikers, and it wasn't bad.
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| Francine on Mescal |
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| Kevin on Mescal |
At the end of Mescal, went left on Deadmans Pass trail to the busy Boynton Pass trailhead. Then, out briefly on Aerie Lower to an unmarked left on to a non-system trail to do some exploring. Here we rode on barely noticeable, narrow, user built, locals singletrack. Most the trails out in the Dry Creek area (where we have been riding for 2 days), were originally narrow, user built. In the last few years, the Forest Service has been improving the entire area, making maps & signage, adopting user-built trails, building new trails, and trying to obliterate some user-built trails. Overall it is a great improvement, but we surely prefer the narrow, raw, user-built locals trails.
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| non-system trail off Cockscomb - at top with Big Rusty Can |
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| Frog wildwife at top of locals rusty can?? trail |
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| Francine on non-system, locals user built trail |
We seemed to be on Rusty Can trail, as quite often, we rode by rusty soup cans hung in the Juniper bushes. The trail dropped down into a wash, and here we lost the trail. We didn't notice a left, climbing out of the wash, and continued down the wash until we hit a trail. Not too much fun to ride thru the rocky, sandy wash.
Popped out on Dawa, went right. Then a slight left onto "Dawa to AZ", and another right onto Cockscomb. Being gluttens for punishment, we shortly went left onto another non-system trail. Went left and took another left, when we should have gone right. Climbed a short hill, and descended then climbed to Dawa to AZ, instead of coming out on Rupp. Oops - did a little backtracking.
Here we descended to AZ Cypress, and we split ways. Kevin took the basically flat "AZ Cypress Alternate" with barely a climb to the Girdner intersection. He sent Francine around on AZ Cypress to climb and descend. Then she continued to climb and descend a couple more times on Girdner, before they met up. Needless to say, she was NOT happy when he called her to find out why she wasn't at the intersection yet. She was still climbing and unnecessarily descending.
After meeting back up, we continued climbing on Girdner to the intersection of Stirrup. Continuing up on Stirrup, means you avoid the descent to the hole (intersection of Girdner, Bolo, Axis & Bottom Out). Retraced our steps and went right on Lasso and left to climb Stirrup to Girdner and to the top, at the Cultural Center.
Great Ride. Again, empty trails for a Sunday. 18.8 miles for Francine. 18.3 for Kevin. We sure love riding from the unit.
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