Category Archives: history

bikes, GPS, history, MTB, roadtrip, travel, USA

Prescott, a short ride & Arizona desert driving

Leave a comment

After two tiring rides on consecutive days, today was supposed to be a driving day. But unable to sleep from 3.30 this morning I eventually got on the internet & found a short loop just out of Prescott – a town that was vaguely on the route we were taking towards Joshua Tree NP. I did eventually get back to sleep, so after a lazy start we made our way down I-17 towards Prescott (“Press-kit” apparently). We got a little distracted by Montezuma National Monument – more cliff dwellings, but not nearly as many or as grand as Mesa Verde NP.

A fair way & many traffic lights down a highway off the interstate, Prescott is a nice big town. We did seem to park on a street that is mostly antique shops (the town’s not that old), so after lunch we perused these until I got bored & then eventually found the center of town. A nice big leafy square with the grand county court house in the middle – & plenty of statues of course. It was pleasantly warm, but breezy so I wasn’t too worried about going out for an easy afternoon ride.

Just west of town we found the trail head in the National Forest & I set off for what sounded like a fun little loop (or so it seemed in my sleep-deprived state this morning). There was a short easy climb to begin with up to a saddle & then the trail skirted a hill & descended for about seven kilometres. The trail was wide & smooth – mostly dirt, with a little sand – & fast. It was great fun, especially all the little water bars to jump off & some nice banked corners. I was having a great time in the sun, but with the breeze & a few small trees around to provide shade it wasn’t too hot. I would have no qualms about taking a confident beginner down this section of trail.

At about the half-way point of the loop the trail turned southwest & started making a gradual climb up a wash. It was a little sandy in parts, but OK. As the canyon narrowed the climbing got a bit more technical periodically – there were a few steep rocky bits I couldn’t clear. That beginner I was thinking of bringing along better not mind a bit of pushing for a while. The trail eventually came out at a small manky dam & meandered along & across roads for a while – trail finding became a little more of a challenge. With one final climb out of the way, it was downhill all the way back to the parking lot. Having not intended to ride today, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this little ride & wasn’t really tired when I finished.

With the ride out of the way, we could make for the Californian border. Valerie had mapped out a route through various backroads which was great. From the Prescott area we headed south on the 87, dropping a lot of altitude in a hurry to get down to the plains. Managing to find gas in a small town, we were more confident that we wouldn’t be stranded in the desert as night fell. The big cacti were starting to appear & the towns were looking more delapitdated as we got further away from the main highway. There are an amazing amounts of derelict hotels & gas stations in these parts, with the associated shells of various vehicles. Occasionally we would happen upon a small town that still had a little life in it.

One such town was Salome – we stopped for dinner at a bar/cafe. The bar was dark, with thin strips of neon & full of locals – unfortunately for me, Valerie preferred to eat in the ’50s style diner, which was still fun (at least the burger was great & the lime drink concoction I had was supercharged with sugar, but very drinkable). Not finding a motel room with two beds in it in Salome, we pushed on to Quartzsite (we’re on the I-10 now, the freeway between LA & Phoenix) & are staying at the Yacht Club Motel. That must be a bit of desert humour, as there’s no sailing on water to be had for miles. It’s really a motel of trailers – first time I’ve ever stayed in a trailer. There’s more room in here than we’ve for weeks & almost a proper kitchen – I wouldn’t buy one, but it’s a pleasant change.

The jagged silohuette was very pretty as the sun set

I couldn’t reach high enough to Tipp-ex an ‘n’ on

bikes, GPS, history, MTB, national park, roadtrip, travel, USA

Mesa Verde & Phil’s World

Leave a comment

Mesa Verde came recommended by Alex as a completely different national park experience. She wasn’t wrong. Only about ten minutes’ drive east of Cortez, we started a beautiful drive up to the top of Mesa Verde. The Visitor Centre was a good half an hour in to the park, we stopped here to purchase tickets for two ranger guided tours around some of the cliff dwellings. For Mesa Verde was home to a large number of dwellings (some 4700 separate sites have been found so far) since the sixth century. On the top of mesa (which is not actually a proper mesa due to its sloping sides) we were up around 7000ft/2500m – what possessed ancients to come & live up here is beyond me. Still, it must have been sustainable, as they stayed until about 1300 & then packed up & left leaving a lot of houses.

Our first tour was of the Cliff Palaces – not really a palace as they had no king or queen, but about 450 little dwellings perched in an alcove near the top of the cliff. We had to climb down some pretty steep steps (some metal, some set in to the cliff side) & gradually got to walk across the front of the area while listening to the ranger explain it all. I’ve absorbed a lot of history today, so don’t feel like repeating much of it here. There was a lot of grain storage areas, little houses for families, & sunken circular family meeting areas. It was pretty neat seeing the progression of their building skills from the bottom (early) layers to the top (later) layers – there were a lot of square edges & some of the towers went right up to the alcove ceiling.

After lunch was the more difficult drop down to Balcony House on another ranger-guided tour. I have no idea how the original residents got in – maybe they had a massive ladder too.

This area was smaller than the Cliff Palaces, but no less intruiging. There were a lot of balconies (in various states of disrepair) & some of the tiny rooms were still intact.

To get out, we had to crawl twelve feet or so through a skinny little tunnel on our hands & knees & then up another ladder & scramble up a steep rockface – good fun. Above the tunnel on the internal side, there were various staggered platforms for defending the area by throwing things at invaders (cows, ducks & so on I expect – prompting cries of “crawl away, crawl away!”).

We spent another hour or so driving around other sites before heading back to Cortez rather historied-out.

But that didn’t matter as I had another ride planned. A rather nice mountain-bike guide I was chatting to during the walk down from Delicate Arch on Sunday insisted that I ride Phil’s World if I was going to Cortez. I duly obliged – the trail is only four miles east of town. It was fantastic. I did all of the loop options, save one last five mile one at the end as sunset was fast approaching. It’s all purpose built singletrack (unlike most of what I’ve ridden recently) & it’s a super smooth surface, with the odd rock feature thrown in. I managed 24 km in an hour & forty & it was all at a beginner-intermediate level. There was nothing technically challenging in it for an intermediate rider like me – it was just plain fun, flowing trail. It was all easily done in the middle ring – as they didn’t have a lot of altitude gain to play with. I was surprised when I checked that I was over 2000m – but my lungs weren’t screaming, so that was good. Dusk was a great time to ride – I didn’t see another rider on my trail – the light was good & I was joined by a lot of singing birds, lizards & some big jack-rabbits (they have ridiculously large ears – to help cope with the heat). A very pleasant evening ride – if I had this on my doorstep, I’d feel like Postman Pat (a really happy man). I got my trip up to 32 km with a nice big-ring ride into town towards a blustery wind & the setting sun.

Rib Cage was the best section of the loop – many, many steep downs followed by short ups & then little jumps with nice landings at the top. The trail was in fact so smooth & well made that I didn’t notice my rear shock was locked out fully until the end of the ride – oops.

bikes, GPS, history, MTB, national park, roadtrip, snow, travel, USA

Scottsbluff, first ride & Rocky Mtn NP (more snow)

Leave a comment

We got away from Alliance nice & early & headed for Scottsbluff, as I’d heard there was some biking nearby.  Previously, I couldn’t work out the references to Alliance being the heart of the Sand Hills as everything was flat.  Quickly we found the big sand dunes, they were covered in beach grasses & I was sure we should have been on the coast, not thousands of miles inland.  I saw something I haven’t seen for many months – a dairy farm with real dairy cows!  They still looked to be wintering & feeding close to the shed, nonetheless I’m claiming it.  With time to spare, we could afford to stop & look at random abandoned things.  The old motel is a steal – it’s got new-fangled electric heating after all.

Bypassing the town unintentionally, we headed for Scottsbluff National Monument – having no idea what it was, apart from some impressive looking bluffs.  As it turned out, this area was an important part of the Oregon Trail (not the computer game, the real deal).  Scottsbluff & the Mitchell Pass through it were about a third of the way into the trail from Missouri & marked the end of the so-called Great American Desert.  It must have been quite something to make it there after two or three months & realise there was still so much further to go.  We spent a little time in the Visitor Center learning a bit, then walked on the trail a while (it was muddy enough in places to walk over, must’ve been awful out of summer with a wagon) & then drove to the top for some good views.

The trailhead was not much of a drive from the Oregon Trail (although I’m not sure that those are related, I can’t imagine pioneers heading up into the Wildcat Hills to hit some singletrack). I’d only read brief details of this ride on a forum & knew it wasn’t that long & was on our path – perfect for my first ride of the summer (without a trace of snow, that is). It was still quite cool, but dry – my lungs didn’t appreciate the chill, but we got up the hill eventually. There wasn’t a lot of signage so I just went all over the place exploring – it was so good to be back on the bike. Most of the climbing wasn’t too steep & the trail was mostly wide, although there was this nasty bridge.

I did find this substantial picnic shelter that seemed over-designed for the number of people that visit it (I didn’t see a soul on my whole ride – on a Saturday afternoon).

Occasionally, I popped out of the trees & could see where I’d come from & get my bearings again.

It was another couple of hours to drive to Fort Collins – in our fifth state, Colorado. Although grey night last night, it’s a very nice town – lots of lovely old houses & big old trees. I would have been tempted to stay more than one night if we were not getting so sick of rain & cold after ten days. So this morning, we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park (a little west) to see some wildlife & drive through to Grand Junction (west CO). The drive out took us through a great skinny canyon & by the time we got to the park it was very foggy. It turned out that the road through was still closed for the season, but we went as far as we could (about 2800m) & looked at the snow, thought it was cold & turned around.

Bits of the park were nice, it was a pity we couldn’t see the great views; we didn’t see any moose or anything else interesting, just more lupins (actually didn’t see any bloody lupins), elk & bighorn sheep. Thankfully we didn’t have to backtrack much due to the road closure, just head south to I-70. The road was tortuous & still pretty high up, it was evident that they (there were lots of scattered houses forming a nice mountain community) had had quite a few inches of snow in the last day or two.

Just before the interstate we went through some very western & old looking mining towns – Black Hawk (founded during the Pikes Peak gold rush) was the most impressive (I’d be more impressed if they hadn’t banned bikes from the streets).

We were soon on I-70 & climbed steadily to cross the Continental Divide. The tunnels through the divide sit at 3400m above sea level & are 2.7km long – it was quite a tunnel that we went through. From there it was mostly downhill (& quite steeply at times too) to Grand Junction at 1400m. The scenery changed dramatically from snow covered trees, to trees & the large ski-resort town of Vail (reminded me a bit of Canmore – lots of new housing that looks like it sits empty most of the year) & then we crossed the Colorado River for the first time. For a while, we were through open valley-bottom plains & then plunged in to tight twisty canyons with very impressive rock – even saw a few climbers on crags right next to the road. By now it was getting hot & the clothes we had on for the morning’s snow & fog were too much. When we rolled in to Grand Junction almost 600km later, we realised we’d gone from close to zero to thirty degrees Celsius in five hours. It sure is nice to be in shorts, T-shirt & flip-flops/jandals.

history, roadtrip, travel, USA, vehicles

Big heads & a big hole underground

Leave a comment

The plan to draw tourists to SW South Dakota with a huge sculpture carved in the mountains obviously worked. On the short drive south into the beautiful Black Hills, there were numerous leeching tourist operations.

This is more an example of the hills, not the awful tourist attractions

None of them appealed & we were at Mt Rushmore before ten o’clock. Finally, we had bright sunlight & a clear blue sky to view things by. Despite having seen images of the four presidents’ heads many times over, they were still a sight to marvel at close-up, carved out of the granite all the way up there. Especially all the discarded rock underneath, pocked with drill marks.

We timed it well to join a ranger’s talk as we walked the short circuit beneath the sculpture. In all, the project was going for fourteen years (1927-1941) before the sculptor, Gutzon Borglum, died – of these fourteen, they were only working for six as funding wasn’t always easy to come by. Astonishingly, ninety percent of the sculpting was done by dynamite & the finishing touches were mostly done with drills, chisels & jackhammers. It was a very interesting morning, especially the details of how the sculpture idea germinated, grew & was carried out – all the patriotism wasn’t too overbearing either.

After lunching in a turnout with a good view of Washington’s profile we continued through the Black Hills.

It sure was good to be back in forest & smelling the pines (although the pine beetle is a problem here, we saw extensive thinning work aiming to combat it). The Crazy Horse sculpture still has a long way to go, but it will be the world’s largest. Considering it’s been over sixty years to get his face done, it still seems rather pie-in-the-sky to me that the arm & pointing hand, his hair & the horse will be done any time remotely soon.

Unexpected delight for the day was a little detour west of Custer to Jewel Cave National Monument. Seeing it on the map I had no idea what it was, but nationally significant caves sounded like a good gamble. It turned out that it’s the second longest (not second largest) cave network in the world – so far they have found almost 250 km of caves & think that is only five to ten percent of the extent of it. Unfortunately we were half an hour late for a more extensive tour (I would have gladly given up time at Crazy Horse had I known), but got to get a small peak inside. From the Visitor Center we took an elevator (nuts, I know) two hundred feet down to what was a big cavern, but only a very small part of the system. Mapping has been going on for over forty years & is still going.

A small part of the worthless jewels that give the caves their name

We’re now in Nebraska after passing through south South Dakota & Wind Cave National Park (more bison roaming the grasslands). Nebraska started out much as I expected – flat. Not dead flat, but flat compared to the last few days. We just paid more than four dollars for gas for the first time & then continuing south we passed through some nice little hills; now it’s flat again & Valerie just spotted the first center pivot irrigator for some time. In this evening light, it’s looking very nice. The sandstone buildings in Hot Springs were nice too as we drove through.

Also, it seems that we are back in the land of the coal train. We passed four really long trains in about five minutes. One was 1.8 km long & another had 119 wagons. They looked pretty good in the setting sun, as far as coal trains go.

Tonight’s stop is Alliance – the smallest town we’ve been to yet.  The highlight so far (likely to remain so) has been Carhenge.  I’ve heard of the Cadillac Ranch down south further, but never of this place.  Simply there’s a whole lot of old car bodies painted stone colour & arranged in the ground & on top of each other to make a Stonehenge-esque arrangement.  It was delightfully nutty.