Soul Cleansing via Bikepacking

Simply put, the last 18 months or so are some months I would really rather forget. I'm still healing from a huge amount of personal turmoil in my life that I can only hope will result in me being a stronger and more authentic person. There has to be a purpose for this pain - so I will march onward.

I have lost many things in this time, but the one I really care to write about here is my love for adventure and in particular bikepacking. That said, since the AZTR 300 in 2017, I haven't done a single mountain bike ride that involved any kind of adventure. It was more just checking the boxes and trying to keep some kind of physical fitness than anything else.

Back during the 2018 running of the AZTR I found myself down south not as a participant, but as a person willing to assist with shuttling vehicles/riders to Parker Canyon Lake and Picketpost. I did this with John Schilling and it was good hang time with a person I highly admired. Sometime at PCL, John brought up a scouting ride that would make for a good bikepack in November. I said I was willing to give it a shot and promptly went home and started to get my fitness together do about 11 mountain bike rides in the next seven months and not one over four hours. About seven of those rides were in October alone as I started to panic that I was nowhere close to ready to do this.

All that said, the date was approaching and I hesitantly sent John an email and said something like "I'm so out of shape, but I'm in if you are". He replied that he was just barely starting to turn the corner in his fitness so we would just see what happened. So begins a beautiful journey of suffering... of soul cleansing.

Day 1
Friday was a bit of a mess due to scheduling and other issues, but I drove up to Deer Creek Trailhead with my bike and awaited John to get there with his bike. We loaded his bike in the back of my truck and headed back south to Lost Dutchman state park - leaving his car there so we had a way to get back to the start when we finished.

We parked in the lot and made final preparations with the last rays of the sun hitting the Superstition Mountains.

My bike ready to roll, rogue panda bags were rock solid again.

John making final preparations - his bike wasn't quite right though :)

Almost ready...except for that fork which was backwards and didn't notice until the first few revs of the pedals! Oops!

View from the parking lot. Can't really capture it in a photo.

We put our lights on, and started riding - just wanting to get a few miles away from roads before settling in for the night.

Just a brief spin in the night to get to camp...

About two or three revs on the pedals and John figured out his rigid front fork was on backwards! Easy enough fix, he would handle it when we got to camp. I thought for a moment that things were gonna get a bit more interesting when we heard a barking dog after we crossed Apache Trail Rd... It was definitely moving around but I'm guessing it was behind a fence thank goodness. We got to our spot really quickly and set up our kits - John was a bit more luxury than me as he was was working out the logistics of his full kit since he has big fish to fry next year... I was gonna cowboy camp like I usually do. Ground cover, sleeping bag, done. We talked about all kinds of stuff - riding, 2018 shenanigans in general, etc. while we ate. Before we knew it it was 9PM and time to crash. I laid on my back and just marveled at the stars and even the milky way as it was visible out there. Saw a couple great shooting stars flash across the sky and then I was out. I thought I heard someone walk by in the middle of the night listening to a podcast or something - I thought I heard John say something asking what it was, but he didn't remember anything and I didn't see any tracks over our bike tracks so... it's a mystery I guess.

Day 2

Woke up with first light and laid in the bag for a bit. Eventually, the clouds to the east were on fire. What a beautiful sight.

Poked my head of of the sleeping bag and saw this. Yeah, that's better than an alarm clock.

Packed up and ready to ride. My sleep kit was simple - ground cover and sleeping bag. Easy.

We were in scouting mode, and some was pretty nice - just needed to be brushed a bit maybe. John trimmed some catclaw like a champ. We ran into some pretty stupid hike a bike stuff, but honestly, HAB never has really bothered me too much. Truthfully if you are doing HAB, chances are you are in a pretty spectacular place with decent scenery. That held true this morning. Still, it was wasted energy which I was going to regret later.

Hmm. Rubble and a little bit of a bunchy climb = let's hike for a second...

Really sweet views. 

We both brought loppers for the ride to do trail maintenance later. Didn't make it to that part of the route, but they came in handy a few times early on. John trimming back dreaded catclaw!

Way steeper than it looks. HAB goodness! 

Eventually, we got done with some of that BS and it was on to some fairly quick jeep road riding before hitting Bush Highway on the way to a pit stop at Saguaro Lake.

Little break after some riding. Ate a snack and reapplied sunscreen...

I spent a good portion of the ride behind John, but I did get ahead of him for a bit on this jeep road section. That allowed me to get some pictures of him. 

Some quick road miles.

Resupply at Saguaro Lake. Checking out what they had. Good resources here, and beautiful.

Waiting for my order to be ready.

We got there and checked out what they had for resupply options. Pretty good cafe and vending machines. Score. I didn't bring any "real food", so I ordered a breakfast sandwich and a soda. I didn't need to, but real food is always good, so why not.

We realized it was already pretty late - I think around 11AM - as we had burned a lot of time earlier messing around with the bulldog canyon singletrack stuff. Figured we needed to get a move on so we were out of there. A little more road riding and we made our way to the Butcher Jones recreation site. Really pretty and I had never been there before.

Butcher Jones site.

I was pretty stoked to start getting into the meat of the route, and was hit right in the face with a pretty nasty sand hike a bike. Ugh!

Footprints in the sand... Dreadful and felt way warmer here than it probably was. 

John was able to ride a bit more than me due to the wider footprint of his tires, but he still walked plenty. It just burned too much energy to try to pedal so we walked. And walked... There is a theme here.

It took quite a bit, but we finally got to the 4 peaks "staging area" - tons of trucks with trailers that had brought all kinds of off road vehicles. It was plenty busy on the road all the way up, but everyone was really pretty courteous. No BS, which is nice to experience. There is plenty of room for all land users out there.

Oh look, a hike a bike. This was one steep pitch. It sucked,

Watching the master at work.Saguaro Lake in the background. Pretty cool to see our start point way in the background!

Still a really long way to go to get up there

Terrain is changing. Reminded me a lot of Tom's Thumb area.

I don't think either of us were really entertained at this point.

I was feeling decent, but as we climbed I started to realize that this was going to be rough. We got 4-5 miles in and it was pretty slow going. Tough with loaded bike that's for sure. We sat down in the shade for a bit and John looked and said "we have eleven miles to go" - oof! He mentioned much later that he contemplated pulling the plug there - still a reasonable bail out. I don't know if I would have fought him too much on that, but I wasn't ready to suggest it myself.

Break time. We realized we had 11 miles to the top. Doubts creeping in at least for me internally.

We got up and started marching on, we had a pretty hefty HAB staring us in the face which we tackled and got done. But we were wrecked. We had made it about another mile and grabbed more shade. At this point John offered up a different option from our planned route stating that it was going to take everything we had to get to the top. We agreed it was the best plan. We would get to the top then detour on El Oso Rd and camp there. Sold. Sucks to get shut down by a route, but it happens. Then... SALVATION. I'm sure we looked a mess, when 3-4 vehicles came down. Asked if we were OK, which we were, but asked if we needed anything and we John asked if they had anything cold to drink which they gladly offered up. The first vehicle gave us two ice cold waters and a gatorade. The second gave us a couple more waters each. So good!

Still rideable

Closer, but still a way to go.

I started cramping not long after this.

John looking way fresher than me at this point. The trail magic did him good.

This revitalized us both and we pressed on. I was riding a bit when it was tamer, but then I started getting leg cramps. Quads were on the edge of full blown lock up, I hopped off the bike and then the calves started going. Great!!! I had been on top of nutrition/salt/hydration, but clearly it was just a case of my legs just not being used to the effort of a long day in the saddle. I hiked anything with any type of incline which was just demoralizing, but what can you do? I was determined to make it up to the top even if I had to hike the 5-6 miles it was to the top. I knew I could hike at between 2-3 MPH so I figured worst case I would hit the top in 2-3 hours.

Finally the worst of the cramps were over and I was able to pedal a bit. The sun started setting and provided one of the most amazing and longest lasting sunsets I can remember. It just wouldn't stop getting better with each passing minute. Absolutely breathtaking in the midst of the suffering.

Sweat on my iPhone camera lens. Sucks. John got some great shots though!

Golden hour and approaching the final push. 

A small amount of riding presented itself, and John told me to press on and he would catch up as he was setting up his electronic gadgetry to recharge. I tried to stay in front of him as long as I could. It was dark now, so I just tried to avoid seeing his lights for a bit and not hear the sound of his freehub behind me. It was rideable for a little bit, so I took advantage. Not too much later, my riding was done for the rest of this climb. I hopped off the bike, grabbed snack, and then heard John behind me. He hopped off about the same place I did and we assumed the HAB position. I think it was about two or two and a half miles of pushing my bike the rest of the way. I told John that if he wanted to zoom away he could, I said I would catch him at the top. I don't know if he could have or not, but I appreciated the company as we hiked up.

Finally we saw the reflection of a cattle guard sign which John said was at the top. I think it took another ten minutes to reach it but we freaking did! Hopped on the bike and outside of some very minimal pedaling, we were just coasting down to El Oso Rd. We stopped there when we reached it, John was able to send a text out, and then we cruised down about a mile to our camp spot. There is a spring there but it seems to have dried up. There was some sketchy looking water in the tire, but we didn't need any, so no big deal. We ate food, had a couple swigs from John's flask and that was about it. I laid in my bag and ate some peanut M&M's for dessert. Tried to watch the sky for a bit but it didn't last long. I was out.

I didn't sleep as well this night, I was a bit chilly - nothing terrible, but I wasn't super comfortable. Slept on and off from maybe 2:30 until the sun came out. I didn't want to crawl out of the bag until the sun was able to give me some warmth.

A couple flat sections of ground is all we needed.

Good morning...

Got out of my bag right around now. Just needed that sun to bathe me in warm rays.

We packed up pretty quickly and then began the burner descent down El Oso Rd towards highway 188. We were rewarded with expansive views to our north and east and of course amazing views of Roosevelt Lake. We made it down to 188 in no time and then we cruised on the road on the way to Butcher Hook where we had a small but delicious breakfast.

Roosevelt Lake here. Sun was in a bad spot so hard to avoid glare in pictures. 

JS geeking out with the peak finder app.

Big views to the north.

We did 8 miles in no time. You can see why here...

Off we went in full roadie mode and it wasn't too bad except for one pretty wicked climb. We made a stop in Jake's Corner to grab a cold drink and rest in the shade before the final push to the car.

Not mad :)

Cool spot!

We took off and pedaled the last miles and it seemed to really warm up on the last mile right before highway 87. Weird. We got there, loaded bikes, changed into some cleaner clothes, and went right back to Jake's Corner for lunch haha!

We ended up taking the scenic route back, meaning we took Apache Trail back towards the superstitions. I had never been back here, which is a crime because I've lived here my whole life. I gotta take the kids on a day trip back there. So amazing.

Um wow. 

Thanks to John for sharing this adventure with me. Hope I didn't slow you up too much. No matter how slow it might have been, it's something I won't soon forget, and that is the real reason for doing this kind of stuff. Nobody really gives a rip how fast you can do something like this. I guess there are those that care, but that has never been me. I'd rather just embrace the experience.

In fact the most important thing - and John said something like this too while we were slogging up the big climb watching the sun disappear in majesty - was that I hadn't thought about any negative thing while I was doing it. I wasn't worried about work, I wasn't thinking about all of the events of the past 18 months, I wasn't thinking about anything than the right here and now. What I was experiencing NOW. What I was feeling NOW. The pain I felt NOW. The exhilaration when we crossed that cattle guard. We made it. NOW.

And that is the magical soul cleansing of a hard day of adventuring.

Go get some.

Relive 'I got Schilling'd (4 Peaks Bikepack)'

Dirt is Calling

Long winded BS below...

As evidenced by the lack of my entries here, things have been basically non existent in my adventure life. I've tried my best to keep some kind of fitness by doing road rides and hiking, but there isn't much that can replicate MTB fitness. Not that I was ever the fittest, but I did OK.

While there are many reasons for my lack of MTB adventure, the bottom line is that I need to start to release some junk in my life and also reclaim one of the things that makes me happy. And if there is one thing I have begun to learn is that you have to make YOURSELF happy. You can't rely on others to do that for you. If you rely on someone else for your happiness, you are setting yourself up for failure.

Anyway, as October came, I realized I need to break out of this funk - I kinda made a half-hearted promise back in April at Parker Canyon Lake that I would be lining up for the 2019 running of the AZTR300. Oh, and a little bikepacking trip was on the calendar for the first weekend of November. Guess I better try to gain a lot of fitness in 2/3 weeks... OOPS.

I decided to revisit a route I last did in August of 2017. Which is crazy because I used to ride Sonoran at least once a week if not more in prep of the 2017 AZTR. Why is that significant? That last time I rode this route was on a Friday night. There were monsoon storms all around the perimeter of the valley, but nothing was threatening. I rode as a way to escape my reality at the time. A marriage that had basically fallen apart - it was over before I had a chance to save it really. I tried to save it I guess in a way similar to how an adventurer might try to fight off a bear or other apex predator. But the final and very unexpected blows I received were just too much and in essence I kinda gave up and hoped to die... literally. In this case, the bear had the final say and I was at its mercy...

Here in the desert this time of year, the sun fades fast... Is the sunset the end of the day, or just the beginning???

The last warm rays of the sun

As I rode this very familiar section of trail, it was like meeting an old friend. It started with a friendly kick to the nuts of course, climbing up from the Desert Vista TH. Of my God am I out of shape. Flow was hard to find - too much road biking has really impacted my ability to ride on dirt. Hopefully that comes back quick enough.

I always think I can capture the moon with my phone, but it never comes out great. 

As I rode, I was surprised with how much I remembered the trail. No big surprises even though there has been a pretty big monsoon season which has changed other trails dramatically. There is one cactus that I always think is a rider as the trail works around a curve. It was still there and I still thought it was another trail user. Haha. Nothing much to note here difference wise, other than a fence built in the middle of the flats between Sonoran South and Sonoran North. Weird.

On the flats between N/S Sonoran

I was feeling OK, but I really just had zero power in the legs. I got to the Apache Wash TH and decided to just call it and get home. I have to admit that I got a bit emotional here... the last time I was here over a year ago I sat at one of the tables in the dark and cried. I mourned the loss of my wife and marriage and an intact family. I yelled to the surrounding desert why I had to go through this. I didn't understand, and I still don't really. 

But I have to believe that it was for a reason. It's funny, that was just the beginning of a crazy time. Losing my wife, then a melanoma diagnosis for me. Then a few months after that and being cleared of it, my father died of his melanoma. I guess they didn't get it all 7 years ago... 

Anyway back to the ride...

Even though the south side of that system has no big climbs if you stay on it, I still bailed off to the cement bike path. I had had enough and I was getting cold haha. AZ native here...

Last bit of dirt before escaping to the cement path. 

Of course I still had to get home which was still about 14 miles away on primarily dirt but at least mostly flat. I'm glad I got out there. I'm going to be getting out a lot more. The pain, the beauty, the solitude. And maybe most importantly, the good people that I have met while doing it. While I rarely ride with others, when I do - it feels significant. 

I'm really looking forward to reclaiming my happiness over the next six months and beyond. Time is short. 

Dirt is calling in a couple of ways. One is adventure. The other is death. One is certainly inevitable. The other is a choice we get to make.

Munds to Mormon Lake Backpack

This isn't bike related, but who cares. Adventure is adventure - and it is outdoorsy so there you go.

I've been getting back into riding more (mostly road meh), but the call of an overnight adventure was calling and as luck would have it, there was someone (I'll refer to her as "The Machine") who was wanting to go on a "fastpack". I guess this means backpacking but with a bit less gear/travelling light-ish. This sounded right up my alley as it sounds basically like bikepacking without the bike. I prefer the simplicity of this, and with wonderful weather here in Arizona (read: chance of precipitation being very low) it's easy to grab a sleeping bag/food/water and get the hell out of dodge.

We originally had thought to do a full circle around Humphrey's over two days but with the crushing drought and subsequent forest closures that got idea shut down in May. In retrospect, that ended up saving our asses because we would have been way in over our head. Hey, who knew that dragging a pack around on foot (even if it is "lightish") would be tough.

As the weekend was approaching, we were still stumped on where to go. Up on the rim was a possibility, but nothing was really appealing and the closures shut down some prime spots. I saw my buddy Ray post up a ride near his place in Munds Park and it got my wheels turning. It's not really a place I ever think of, but I thought maybe it just might work. I asked him about the route he rode and if it would be suitable for what I was looking for. He ended up working up a route that would keep us on quiet forest roads/double track for much of the route - quite an accomplishment since it was a holiday weekend. He even got us on a nice chunk of the AZT that I haven't been on. Thanks Ray for always being willing to help out on outdoor adventures!

With the 35 mile route in place, we were ready to roll. I had to wrap some business up at work, so I wasn't able to head out until around 8:30PM. Picked up my The Machine and we were on our way north along the I17. The beautiful thing about leaving late was we had an uneventful ride up the hill. We made quick work of the drive and went down the main drag of Munds Park and onto a forest road that would lead us to our camping spot for the night. Plenty of people were camped out but we found a quiet spot pretty quickly which is amazing considering the holiday. We had a couple beers and crashed out in the back of the truck with sleeping bags and an air mattress. It got damn cold that night because we were in a bit of a cold sink.

We were up at 7am and packed up quickly and started the route. We passes some early camping spots but were soon on double track and away from everyone. I don't think we saw anyone for the first three hours. It was amazing. Saw some deer, but mostly we just enjoyed the quiet surroundings. We wanted to keep the pace around 3MPH and we were actually just above that at 3.2.

Really nice and quiet forest back here!

Early on the call of food at the Mormon Lake Lodge was calling us. I felt really solid for the first three hours - I knew cardio wise I would have no issues, and I wasn't worried about the weight of the pack on my hips/shoulders due to my bikepacking experience. Even though I was loaded heavier - carrying 200oz of water due to very dry conditions which made every obvious water source on route dry as a bone until the lodge and campgrounds north of that it still never bothered me in the upper body. My feet however were getting angry and I got a bit concerned starting around our first break at mile 15.

We continued on after our break and were really looking forward to hitting the AZT and finding more shade. Three miles to get there from our rest point. We did start hitting a bit more traffic as we were getting close to Lake Mary Road, but everyone was really courteous. Nice to see.

We arrived at the AZT turnoff and since we were now heading North and the sun was past its high point we were shaded a lot more and we really tried to enjoy this very pretty section of the AZT. However, we were both really starting to hurt - my feet were pissed at me. That said, we were kinda committed to getting to the lodge mainly for food. Water would have maybe been a concern too if we crashed out before getting to a resupply.

Singletrack on the AZT!

So begins the slog/pain cave. Wow it has been quite a while (over a year since my run at the AZTR in 2017) since I have been in the pain cave like that. Just one foot in front of the other, but with hiking there is never a free foot/yard/mile. You have to take every step. No gravity assist downhills. If you want to get there, you have to move. So much different than MTBing so it really gave me such a new respect for backpackers/runners in general.

We finally made our way to the Navajo Springs Trail junction and it said 1.1 miles to the lodge on the sign and we were stoked. Of course, this 1.1 miles took FOREVER. It's always like that. That said, I just checked the track and it's closer to 1.4 miles so...

Descending Navajo Springs Trail to the Lodge. There's Aspens in here! Didn't like the loose horse trail at the end though. 

Mercifully, we made it the mass of humanity that is the Mormon Lake area and headed straight to the lodge. We were both crushed and needed food and off of our feet. The Machine headed to try to clean up a bit in the restroom while I ordered the first round of drinks and french fries. Truthfully, the fries weren't great but they went down quickly anyway. Not very often am I too tired to eat, but I was spent. A couple of beers made their appearance as well. Not a great call... mostly because I was so tired. I really should have gotten some caffeine.

Beer me right now!

We finished up our meal and drinks and loaded up our hydration bladders with water that the very kind staff at the restaurant provided - really nice people in there by the way. We stood up and walked at a snail's pace out and onto the main drag. I've never been that sore or wrecked before. I was a mess and it took quite a bit just to get moving again and the pace was very slow.

We were ready to call it a day, but wanted to get away from the lodge a bit - we eyed some space on the left side of the road and decided that when we were away from the lodge and all the campers we would head up a bit a find a place to crash. It was around 6PM maybe. We had just barely made it away from the lodge when the steepness gave way a bit. It was signed as no camping, but we didn't really see much of an alternative other than crashing on the right side of the road but we would be exposed to vehicle traffic - not good. We made the call to head up a bit - there was some OHV trail that headed up there, so we didn't feel terrible about hiking up. We got some elevation and it flattened up enough and there was some bushes that we could crash behind. 25 mile day 1. Done. Laid out our sleep gear and I was out in minutes. It was about 6:30PM wow.

We had one weird interruption when we were up there - I had hung my pack up on a tree about 40 yards from our sleep spot. There was a OHV that had come partially up to our location but they still couldn't see us. They apparently saw my bag hanging and went to check it out. Of course once they got to my bag and looked back there we were. They were very kind and apologetic about the disturbance. We were a little worried they were going to give us problems due to the no camping sign, but they seemed cool. They asked if we were OK (I'm sure we looked wrecked) and we said we were good, just really tired. They apologized again and headed back down. We didn't have any other visitors the rest of the time.

I basically stayed horizontal for twelve straight hours. I didn't even get up to go to the restroom which was a bad sign - I would need to get on top of my hydration was the first thought in my head as I started moving around in the morning.

Good sleep spot!

We both felt better, but at the same time we didn't feel great. We knew that we would be walking the main road for a bit, but the question was how much. There were a couple of forest roads that we could jump on but they would lead to a bit of extra miles and time. Any extra of either one wasn't very appealing. So we just stayed on the main road (it wasn't heavily traveled since it was still early on a Sunday morning) until we came across the campground where we would jump back on the AZT briefly.  We also dumped some trash and washed up a bit there since there was running water. After our brief jaunt on the AZT we were on forest road 240 which would basically get us all the way back to the truck. There was a bit of OHV traffic but not bad. It was a little bit exposed to the sun since we were heading east to west, but whatever.

After getting some elevation via the AZT to 240. 

We held a decent pace, but were just ready to be done. At one point, I was hoping for someone to ask us if we wanted a lift. I would have gladly said yes.

We were really starting to lose it a bit there towards the end. Making up dumb songs, mainly along the lines of the video "America, fuck yeah" (look it up on youtube). It was the weekend before 4th of July so it seemed to make sense. Besides the dumb songs, I'm pretty sure I said "this is bullshit" about a thousand times.

Wide open spaces and bluebird skies.

The Machine was solid. She knew when to shut up but also when to offer encouragement. It's hard to come by someone who knows that balance. I think it just comes from experience. She has done plenty of stupid bullshit in the ultra running community so we are both stupid in our own ways.

The Machine

Anyway, not much else to say except we made it to the truck. It was getting hot and the sun was high in the sky but somehow I managed to park the truck in a spot where it was shaded. YES! We enjoyed a fairly cool powerade that I had left and washed our nasty ass feet with water that seemed very cold.

We then made a call to head into Flagstaff for some lunch AKA watching me walk around like an old man. Tore up some pizza in town, walked around a bit more (I limped mostly and earned the nickname "Walter") then decided to leave to hopefully beat the traffic down the hill.

Hell of an adventure. I might do it again - but I'd rather do it on a bike.