In search of the breeze

Around October, the breeze dies down and lays still until March...or so most years go.  This personal weather change of mine, of wholesale fabrication by design, heralds the long awaited ski season.  I downgrade my bike for shorter rides, eschewing the long days of summer and tire for the grippy cold skintrack in powder.  This year, the breeze has started up very early....all because Father Winter has turned into a one-pump chump in these parts.  It was under Father Winters failure of high-pressure and blue skies where I found myself experiencing a short solo beatdown on the AZT segment from Superior to the Gila River and back.....along the way, I found my breeze.  

What better occasion to throw my salt encrusted cycling glove into the ring for the AZT300.....Fearing what this means....I climb up seeking the breeze.

The breeze is something you lose for a bit when you haven't been riding the long ones for a few weeks.  It can come along and help you out when you're out of touch, out of communication, out of food, out of water, out of....time......Its the only thing that gets you through the ride sometimes.  Here, when I peer down into the abyss for the first time....I hope for the breeze to find its way to me by the time I have to climb back out........

.......the trail seemingly goes on forever, pushing down into the dusty haze of the lowland deserts.....The breeze here becomes gravity....for now......

Gravity pushes me along into another canyon, out of view from the previous canyon and into a new one......

...the ink-black depths set against the toothy cliffs on high suck me in.....

....it's impossible to just RIDE through here....every few minutes, I'd find more jaw dropping scenery falling away from both sides of the singletrack.....

Scrambling down a bit in hopes of seeing the bottom of this canyon....I fail....it's down there somewhere I trust....mark that one for future exploration.....

The breeze pushes me along, at times feeling as in flight.....

On my turn around back down in the lowlands if the Gila....the breeze holds strong....I settle into a gear and resign myself to pedal....and then I loose my memory....this usually happens when the breeze blows the strongest, drowning out all thought.  I can't say I remember anything of the climb other than the left-right-left rhythm in my legs, my lungs and my heart......It was after this, I found myself back on the ridge, this time looking back from where I came earlier in the day....

Sensing the close of the ride and unknowingly lamenting the impending separation from the breeze....I pause more, breathing in the light, rock and plants around me....

The landscape in my solitude, disturbs and delights.  The immense remoteness contrasted against the comfort of the breeze I feel in this harsh land of thorn and cliff is what fuels my ride....

....the breeze causes me to pause and marvel at alien bioforms clinging to ferrous rocks......

.....a breeze that presents itself in tilted strata against open skies as I contour across each step-like escarpment.....

....and it's a breeze that reminds that although winter may be on hiatus for a time, the snows beneath the pine of the Pinal mountains off in the distance tease at a quick return....