X-Post: Kip and Alison RIP

I don't ever repost....but this is just tragic sad......

http://www.powdermag.com/mantle/kip-garre-1973-2011/

http://www.tetonat.com/2011/04/28/kip-garre-dies-in-split-mountian-avalanche/

The many faces of Lemmon

I've never ridden on Mt. Lemmon before....{insert facepalm gesture here}.  So when Chad extended an invite for a tour up top, I jumped at the opportunity.  With dogs fed, bags packed and two new tires on the bike, I pointed the vagabond-mobile south.  The plan was to ride up from town in the afternoon, make bivy somewhere up top in the dark and spend the next day riding.....the dude abides.

Leaving the car at Le Buzz Caffe at 4pm, we started the sweaty climb up Mt. Lemmon Highway where we were shortly joined by Johnathon who was running a bit late....the temperature was 92 degrees....

Leaving the highway at Molino Basin, we jumped onto Prison Camp trail (which is now known as the Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation site....give respect where it's due....he waited a while.....)...climbing into the beautiful light of late afternoon......

Moments of shade were welcomed as were switchback challenges....

Warm glow of afternoon in the high Sonoran desert grasslands is a special time...

It's hard to take a bad picture when everything just glows with intensity and contrast....

Climbing higher as the sun sank lower......

 

Photo By Chad Brown

......the last evidence of day illuminates the craggy nature of the Santa Catalina's against a tangerine mist......

.....and the shadow of a lone rider, projected onto a fiery tableau......

Photo By Chad Brown

Reaching our bivy spot next to Butterfly Trail in the dark, we were officially cold with a brisk wind gusting to 20 mph and temperatures now in the low 30's.....we promptly fell into our bags and slept with the wind gusting most of the night.

Waking in the morning, I reached a frozen hand out of my bag and snatched the chorizo and bean burrito which lay within my pack.....700 calories of love to warm my cold and waking body....

Bikepacker Snuggie?..........

With temperatures rapidly warming, we headed over to Marshall Gulch.  The satisfying roar of Sabino Creek, cascading over polished rock below us, reverberated off of the granite slab surrounding us....

Topping out at 9100ft, we enjoyed our first downhill of the trip as we hooted and hollered our way down Aspen trail.....

Faces of flow captured on my camera, became the theme for the rest of the day as we stayed high to avoid the heat down low.....Chad booting it.....

.....and sticking it....so many faces in mere seconds gives hint to the rush and exhilaration found on two wheels; avoiding the bummer life......

Climbing back out of Marshall Gulch, body english and grimaces were required....

Heading over to Secret via a combination of Cafe, 1918, Bear Wallow and some other trails which escape me....I capture the many faces of a log roll.....

Cresting Bigelow, we shared 2 tall boys and reveled in the afternoon sun.  Sounds of birds, a cool breeze, a 100 mile view and the great descent down to Palisades got us drunk....

Continuing the screaming descent on the road where I hit 40.3mph, a new record for me, we jumped onto the hoodoo ridge descent down Bug Springs.......

Finishing off with a final descent down the highway, we ended the trip with beers and burgers at Nimbus Brewery.  A treat well earned after 60 miles, 60 degrees of temperature range experienced and 10,800ft of vertical gain on the trip.

Nowhere Man

Last weekend saw me put together a pretty decent effort in Arizona Endurance Series, Prescott Monstercross.  No camera, minimal stops, no mind games, no looking at my mileage and tripping out on how many more to go.  Just soft wind at my back, conifer and oak in green, streams of blue and cool, tacky singletrack.....and solitude in nothingness for 8 hours and 38 minutes.  I shared the singletrack with Noel, Jason and Brian at the start....then it was just Jason and I....then it was just me....Nowhere Man....riding alone for the bulk of the race.  I rode with Nancy for a bit, until she climbed away from me into nothingness as she always does.  I also remember wanting to puke during one climb...but I let it disappear into nothingness without giving it any more thought....and it went away.  I came away from that ride feeling as if I'd found the nothingness once again....it's something I seek, but only finds me.  To look for it makes it slip away....and yet I felt as if I had the formula for making it happen.  I set out to test that theory on a ride on Pass Mountain.

I've always liked this road view on the approach from my house.  A road to nothing....ending in dirt at the base of the Superstition Wilderness.  Looking east from this view, I imagine that at the end of this road just a few miles ahead...there is nothing....all the way to the New Mexico border....and then, more nothing.  Looking into nothing is comforting.  Yet, within all that nothingness....is a world of wonder, defined by the present and free from the past and future.

Stopping to adjust my suspension after the road approach, I snap a picture of the recommendation to not ride into nothingness.....

The hillsides in the nothingness are still filled with gold, but the coming summer heat is shrinking the colors away into smaller, yet more refined representations of themselves, much as I am.....

Stopping to shoot some ocotillo blooms, a lone coyote stared back at me....

......"Nowhere Man, doesn't have a point of view, knows not where he's going to, Isn't he a bit like you and me?"

Climbing north on the western face of Pass Mountain, the skyline is dominated by Saguaro's; rivaling any skyline found in a big city; I'll take nowhere over somewhere, any time.....

Prickly Pear, offered a convenient stop before the climb around the north side.  The lack of winter rains have left the desert without the blue flowers of spring....my Mach 5's blue anodization offers a supplemental palette.....

Pollen spread thick as nebulae, ring the green core of the universe within........

On the other side of the trail, I spot the home of a recluse doing what a recluse does....."He's a real nowhere man, Sitting in his Nowhere Land, Making all his nowhere plans for nobody".

Climbing around the north side, contouring up above the valley to the west of Bulldog Canyon, I struggle to show the tightness of singletrack carved in granite with such limited field of vision........

.......and yet convey the expansive void of nowhere.........

Cresting the pass, I stop to adjust my suspension yet again, lower my seatpost for the descent and shout songs at the tops of my lungs at the mauve cliffs encrusted with olive drab lichen across the valley.  In return, I hear the echo's of a Nowhere Man, heading back and out into nowhere land.....

Almost to the bottom of a speedy and flowy descent over various forms of rounded chunk, chunky chunk, lumpy chunk.......and razor chunk....I'm stopped by the hiss of two sidewall gashes...one in front, one in back.  Patching the rear with the fluid within the tire, the air escaping stopped.  The front however, was too far gone.  Throwing in a tube....I went on my way......"Nowhere Man, don't worry, Take your time, don't hurry, Leave it all till somebody else lends you a hand!"

Lyrics by John Lennon

A Flat Tire day

Slowing down in life is a hard thing, even when you plan it.  With all apologies to Edward Abbey, getting drunk in the afternoon is one way to slow things down.  After my obligatory ride which turned into a "I'm going to ride every trail on Hawes in one try" ride, I rode the townie to the bar to have some fish taco's and a few beers.  With nothing much to watch in my own corner of the bar, I split my concentration between the Masters tournament, a Diamndback game, the trivia monitor, and random conversations from 2 separate parties behind me.  One party was dominated by a woman with an annoying voice and I'm quite certain, she talked the entire time they were there....I was thankful they left.  The other party, were Canadians....and although they did not play golf, they were rooting for some guy named Tiger.  Listening to them drone on and on about Tiger and golf made me resent the game....not that I have a reason to.  As I viewed the perfectly manicured course with it's beautiful flowers, hedges and greens, a thought occurred to me.....it'll never be as beautiful as this.

Realizing the folly of my ways, I cashed out and headed back home on the townie to grab my other bike, my dog, a camera and a bottle of tequila.  Having already ridden for the day...I just wanted to spend some time looking at natural beauty, spreading mirth and enjoying the show.  This time of year, the desert is awash in gold........

Setting up on a natural rock cairn, across from the start of the mudflaps climb on Hawes; I ambushed riders as they stopped to catch their breaths before the climb....and offered them a shot of gold colored mirth.....

Not many takers were found....I can't blame them....as they mostly shook their heads or were generally disgusted by the thought of an ounce of tequila in their gut as they went anaerobic on the climb up mudflaps. Still, if I were to happen upon a stranger in the desert offering me a glass of gold...I'd take it as a sign and abide....but I digress.  Graham, was pretty excited though....offering a chance for me to zone out and snap beautiful pictures....he, alerting me to each new rider before I could even hear the sound of them approaching.

But even he was distracted when he started sniffing around and realized there were packrats under the rock pile we were on....which meant lots of pawing, squeezing into spaces and poking his nose into things a bit too far.  If you've ever seen a desert packrat den, then you know they protect it with cholla balls to keep coyote's and other like-minded hunter mammals out.  Graham being the neophyte to the ways of the pack rat, required me to pull some barbs from his nose...but was generally un-phased by the experience and went right back to hunting.....

On the ride back home, I got a flat which forced me to walk it back home.  Having not carried any of my usual tools with me, I pushed this useless 2-wheeled contraption up the hill where, my even slower pace than before was now rewarded.  The sight of a Harris Hawk above me, circling on an invisible updraft captured my imagination....a swallow diving down on it not even entering into the the Hawk's equation.  The beauty of the ocotillo's around me, covered in a verdent fuzz only seen after hard rains, topped with fabulous plumes of red; their ever-present spines, hidden underneath.

The flowers of Cholla, illuminated by the fading light of day...this was the magic hour for the camera....the individual grains of pollen, back-lit through pedals of gold.....

When I got home, I realized that I forced myself to slow down this day....and then, as if not enough....life in the form of a flat tire, forced me to slow down some more.  These may not be the dog day's of summer, but the languid form those days take should be emulated from time to time.

An overhaul will be required

As I wrenched on my bike this afternoon, I started thinking about the sheer amount of wear on my equipment which I've accumulated in the last year.  I keep my gear generally clean and operational...but even the most cared for items get worn and require a complete overhaul every once in a while.

Looking at my skis leaning in the corner of the garage, offered me further proof of the subtle damage which occurs even through normal use.  Dirt and mud from my last tough egress out of a backcountry route, cakes the topskin.

Climbing skins, pushed hard over downed trees on approach into the alpine, folded and put away wet after every day this season; lie drying and tattered.  

My bases, filled with scratches from early and late season sharks, lurking beneath the surface of a somewhat good La Nina snowpack; still harbor a poorly P-Tex'd patch over a core shot from back in January.  The core, now protected by the thinnest of cover is evidence of wounds which have yet to heal fully.....

Ski boots which scramble over scree on wind-swept ridges, allowing me to connect the dots between slopes of snow, shelter a similar bounty of volcanic mud in the uncounted scratches gouged into the hard exterior shell....each walking exit from a tough ski day staining the sole until the next powder day where they will be washed clean.

Bike shoes, offering up evidence of many hike-a-bike episodes; are devoid of tread in places, ripped canvas and worn brass cleats....everything operational, but very much worn from the journey.....

And then I started thinking of the stats on my blog viewership.  Last month's viewership toped 900 visits on the month for the first time, representing a stunning run-up in traffic that started 3 months ago giving me a monthly average 97% higher in the month of March over what it was in December.  I owe this to two things:  A new camera, and a full schedule of great adventures.  I don't think I've improved that much as a photographer....but what a joy it is to snap shots with the new glass.  And while I really do enjoy having the adventures and getting to write, photograph and share....I've hit the wall here in the past 10 days or so; creatively, physically and mentally.  I need a bit of a rest.  I tried pushing though it at first....but it just flattened me.....much like the gash in my balding rear tire which keeps opening, and I keep nursing along into the next adventure.

I suspect I'm overdue for a complete overhaul....some time in a hammock, somewhere calm; a copse of greening aspen in the cool breeze and warm sunshine of early summer would be welcomed.  I was going to ride the AZT300 and had been preparing all spring to get this done...I even went two months without drinking beer!  But the month of March broke me and left me with creeping suspicions that I really was not in a good mental place to do this now.  At first, I thought that perhaps I was just being lazy and trying to find a way out of doing such a big ride.  But after my precocious attempt at something so soon after the heaviest of life's curveballs to ever come my way; I realized that the thoughts in my head had nothing to do with a lack of commitment.  After careful contemplation and with a heavy heart, I abandoned my dream for this year. The rest, fell in line....perhaps a makeup in May on the Coco250?  If so, I better change my chain....there's a link in there that is a bit janky, but I've been living with for some time now.

I'm not going to take much of a break....probably just a week or so as I have already tapered off my normal schedule of adventures.  It's perhaps seasonally appropriate that this is happening in the nape of the seasons....the end of a ski season, and the beginning of a mountain bike season.  The trouble being that since I live in Arizona....the mountain bike season pretty much spans the entire year.  It's tough to get a good rest in when so much is offered.

I suppose I should offer thanks to the many folks who enable the good times....the cheer in a post ride celebration, the early morning breakfasts before heading out into darkness, up a cold and windy skin track to ski a peak well off into the distance, and most importantly; the folks we leave behind so we may follow our passions and share with them later.