Happy Summer

The long rides of spring have given way to short rides of summer on the Coconino.  They're the kind of rides which are not marked by the long march towards solitude; you and your mind ranging over the landscape.  They are the rides punctuated by conversations concerning life and the shared experience.

I rather enjoy these rides within the Coconino.  These are the rides when everything you have is coated with the fine erosional dust of volcanic activity long gone .  Her fine dust coating everything, getting into my mouth as I breathe hard up a short pitch after a dusty descent; the grit coats my teeth which are exposed in a perpetual grin.  My tongue feeling the fine abrasive texture of that long ago cataclysm coating the roof of my mouth, the subtle acidic taste lingers as I pour down the singletrack once again in hot pursuit.

The sound of summer rides with friends takes on a different timbre, each highlight being shared mutually within a crescendo of enthusiasm.  It makes you want to play louder and better....each participant willed into a performance better now than it was last week.  EpicRider with his production number 36 Coconino, plays on the log rolls of the Coconino....  

Climbing farther into the hills, the dry and dusty conditions of the Ponderosa dominated forest give way to the loamy character of ground littered with aspen leaves from last falls transformation.  The acidic taste in my mouth and sharp smell in my nostrils is replaced by the subtle and sweet earthiness of decaying plant matter....occasional breezes reach down from the hill and sift a note of mushroom towards us on the twisting path.  We appear to flicker as we fly through shadows and shafts of light, filtered between the neon-green leaves of aspen in spring.  Ahead of us, we see angled columns of light filled with dust motes gently floating in random patterns which makes time appear to slow down.  If it were not for the riders who pierce through these columns of stillness, the motes would remain frozen in time; their motion now swirling in the wake of riders blazing their own path in pursuit of happiness.

With the visual stimulation being absorbed by all of our senses, more challanges are met head on by some...and others left to document the transaction.  The feeling of shared stoke over a tricky approach and climbing skinny.......

When riding is like this, the camera just fades away into my pack; the rest of the ride is consumed in a feast of light, smell, feel, taste and sound....Happy Summer is here....