New Year's Eve in the desert

New Year's Eve day ride. We followed up on a lead for places to ride from a mechanic at Ajo Bicycles. We could see some MTB trails on the Green Trails maps and they looked reasonable. One of these days, we're going to learn that the map is worthless. But more on that later.

This is a cholla, look on the ground underneath it. Those are cholla pups. They're really spiky, they'll latch on to animals, people, and bicycle tires with no provocation. The next time we ride Fantasy Island we're taking tongs to move them off the trails.


So, we rode the Prospector trail out to the sign for the Avery Bryce trail which allegedly would go up to the Gilbert Ray Campground. We headed out and eventually realized we'd made a 360. Upon arriving at the Avery Bryce trail sign again, we asked a hiker how to get to Gilbert Ray. He did not think there was a direct route there, despite the sign or the map. He drew us this map on how to get close to the campground.


Part of the instruction set was to cross the wash by the jeep track and pick up the trail on the other side. It wasn't clear exactly where to cross the wash. We were pretty sure this was not where we would be crossing, it was about 15 feet deep with sheer walls.


The map drawing guy ambled along shortly after we had a nosh and showed us the crossing point, and waved in the general direction of across the wash and said the trail was over there. We never found it. After riding for awhile, we decided that we were not being nice to the desert and decided to head back to the other side of the wash. Unfortunately, we had veered pretty far away. There was quite a bit of over land crossing.



Hey Jim, aren't we supposed to be riding these things?


Eventually we crossed the original wash, found the miserable abandoned jeep trail and rode out of the desert. We got much experience riding on loose sand with rocks on an incline. If we'd stayed on the original side of the wash and not crossed, we would have been fine. That's a good place to ride and we'll be going back there. So, overall it was a success. We've found somewhere close to the RV park where we can ride with no expectation of maiming or death. We just don't cross the wash!
When we got back out to the road to head back to the car, we saw this man playing his drums out in the desert.


After the ride, we went and washed the truck at the spray car wash. Coming back, we got behind this rig. That's an Essex Class A, it's built by Newmar. They are very tall and expensive. He's towing a Hummer.


The RV park population is increasing. We'll be interested to see if it fills up like it did last year.

Today we rode on the road up north. The pavement is better and there is less broken glass in the bike lanes. We think we're not going to ride Ajo and Mission so much any more because the road surface is just abysmal and the traffic is really heavy. It was a gorgeous day, mid-70s, and no wind. That will all change on Saturday.

Happy New Year to you all!