Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Black Canyon Trail

Christina and I hung out until about 9pm at the race venue Sat night after the race with a few of her teammates. We had a blast. I spent the night at her house (Zach drove to Mesa to hang out with some friends in from IL) that night. We got to her place, showered and passed out. We were both zonked from the race and the sun and the drinks. For breakfast on Sunday, she made the best fried eggs that I have had in a really long time. Fantastic.

Shortly after breakfast her friend Robert arrived. We were all headed up to the Black Canyon Trail off of I17. It's a multi-use singletrack trail that will eventually stretch from Carefree Hwy all the way up to Hwy 69 in Dewey (which is just east of us); that's 62 miles of singletrack!.

We started at the Table Mesa trailhead and headed north. Took the east side of the loop on the way out, and the west side on the way back. We were beat from the race on Saturday, so we only did about 18 miles.

It was awesome!! The trail winds up the Bradshaw Mts so much of the trail is....I wouldn't say ledgy is the right word, but you've got hill going up on one side and hill going down the other side of the trail. Not sure what the technical term is for that. Beautiful scenery along the way.

The whole area is multiuse. There are separate 4x4 trails, miles and miles of well used trails. There are shooting ranges. The one downside to the singletrack trail is that there are a few rednecks that venture off of the legal shooting areas and end up too close to the trail.

Other than that, it is awesome.
Here's a few pictures.

Somewhere near the beginning of our ride





















We just crossed the Agua Fria. You can see the rednecks and their truck through the trees if you look close.











Climbing up one short stretch of gravel road.











Desert poppies











Christina checking out the trail we just rode











Ahhh, thel view





















Shoes off!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'll have to remember this trail system on my next visit. Never been there before. Never seen anything close to that much water out there either. Looks refreshing.