12/15 - Sedona and icy slickrock - eek!

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The Intent - Sedona BFL

First off, I must apologize to the gang as I can *not* keep the names in my head and I'm still wondering why I am compulsively posting this at this late hour.

So, up dark and early, out of the house, car topped off and coffee in hand cruising around Phoenix highways to hit the 17 and be northward bound.

All was great until the accident on 17 closed the highway, fortunately for me it only cost me about 30 minutes, so I was not terrifically late showing up for Chad and the boys.

Turns out one other person was hammered by the accident, and rolled in right behind me, as I fighted from shivering while getting my bike 'n gear together and my final layers of clothing installed.

It was a frisky 20-something to start with. It's been a while since I've ridden at that temperature, and it took a bit of work.

We ended up with a small group of five intrepid souls, two of which I think were The Instigators, and were working on planning the Big Ride and doing a dry run today to make sure they had good cue-sheets and that the trails were do-able.

Do-able in this case has a highly flexible feel to it, but I suppose it's just my bias from not being a resident of the area.

The Airport Loop was one tough mug, I don't care who you are it will take some good attention and line picking - no matter what the bike. Very strongly filled rounded rock filled trail, very narrow and winding through the cactus, with some pretty good steep sections, some slickrock traversals, and good exposure in places. Today, it had the Extra Spice that in some areas it had frozen water seeps running across, which certainly increased the pucker factor in places (and was harbingers of things to come for sure).

Once we got to the end of Airport, at the saddle, we started hunting for a way down on the south-east side, which did not pay out, and we ended up returning to the saddle and going down the other side on an un-named trail, to the road, and across to head up Schnebly Hill.

This finally put a place the name that I have had in my GPS since last year's AZSF (which I was unable to attend but watched over the web with envy).

We continued up, following singletrack as much as possible up what I believe to be Munds Wagon Trail, and it has some very VERY cool and serene locations. Particularly with the frozen water presence, as some of the gang found to present quite the sketchy traversals.

Again, we continued up, heading up and across the slickrock field near the top of Bear Walloc Canyon, and onto the slickrock slopes (sometimes ice-punctuated) on the north side, heading for the saddle above Grasshopper Point.

Which presented us with the most awesome views, and a momenteary respite from the off-camber life we were mostly living.

I was having a good time on the slickrock, remembering playing fondly on it in Moab and Fruita and enjoying the Sedona variant quite a bit.

(continued...)

Strangely, while the significant exposure of areas did bring my conservative nature to the riding, I did not find myself uncomfortable on it as I have in the past. I'm not sure if this is good or bad though. :D

Once we rolled through the saddle, it was time to start descending down the rock towards the Point. This was made a wee complex by the severe angle of the rock face, increasingly by the ice that could not be avoided, and made entertaining by one of the bikes almost making the traversal sans-rider.

Thankfully, the only damage from that incident was one zip-tie on a fork (as far as I know), and in the end both bike and rider continued on reunited.

It could have been a ploy to not have to travers down while holding onto a bike, but that seems excessive.

Once off the slickrock field heading down, it became apparent that the day had warmed up beyond the freezing point of water as much of the dirt had either a thin sheen of mud on it (makes for nice color decoration over bike and body) or was very slow-rolling as the soil gave way to tires.

But, continue down we did, and into a period of what I can best call "repeated singletrack chutes" separated by very tight switchbacks. Some of which I could roll, some of which I could not, but I'm sure a couple in the group rolled it all as I could hear the wooping-for-joy (or surprise?) the entire time.

I had a rather shit-eating grin on my mug too, but I tend to get into intesnse sections like that and clam-up as I concentrate.

Once down off the hill, at somewher about mile marker 11 (or 15 - not sure really) we ended up being surprised in needing to cross Oak Creek. The creek was flowing nice and clear, and VERY cold. This was to be a shoes-off crossing for me as I wanted to be able to have dry feet afterwars to ward off discomfort and illness. The crossing was slow because of this (I think everyone had similar thoughts), but all made it safely across without taking a bath.

From here, the technical difficulty of the ride pretty much floored. There were short points of steep climbs once we got onto Jim Thompson, but not muich really.

Sadly, for me, between my excesses yesterday and the ride leading up to it, I was getting very fatigued and stupid. So, when I lost contact with the group and after a decent interval I could neither find nor hear them, I turned about and went down hill the way I had came up, back to the road, so I could connect out 100% sure and safe.

If I had purchased a map of the trails before going up to ride, I'm sure I would have gone on and dropped out on Soldier Pass, but alas I did not and probably addded needless pavement mileage.

I must be clear, I really REALLY enjoyed my day in Sedona. I could spend a week exploring stuff up there to be sure. Maybe more, as I would want to repeat-play on some stuff.

The sequence of trails that we rode (as far as I went with them) goes something like this...

- Road to Bandit (I think may have been direct to...), - to Airport Loop - down an un-named trail - to 89A - to Schnebly Hill Road - to Munds Wagon Trail - across the slickrock field at the end of Bear Wallow Canyon, - through the saddle above Huckaby, - across the hill above Huckaby, - down an un-named trail, - across Oak Creek (brrr) - to Grashopper Point - with some confusion, - Downt he trail to Midgley Bridge, - around the canyon and down 89A (Jim Thompson was closed from that side) - Up Jordan Rd - to Jim Thomposon trail, - towards Devils Kitchen and Soldier Pass trailhead (I did not make it to Soldier Pass, should have had a map)

This is where I separated from the group, I could not keep up enough with them any more to follow and was fading badly so I bailed, returned to Jordan Rd, and cruised pavement back to the car. Boring, but easy and safe.

I understand the crew continued on for a while, but I do not know the route they took (and it would not be part of my fling anyway).

[size=+2]NOTE:[/size] tracklog is approximate, my GPS got turned off right after we got to the dirt road on Schnebly Hill Rd. :frown:

Ride summary for Bear (the rest of the gang went longer): 6:45 duration (according to wristwatch), 24.4 miles (jives with cyclecomputer), 5846 ft of climbing. Ouch.

This ended up being about 1/2 of what Chad and the crew had in store.

Scary.

The GPS tracklog is available in both GPS Exchange and Google Earth KML formats.

Looking back on Sedona from the Airport Loop

The first few miles were VERY one-sided, apparently.

End of the Airport Loop

In the saddle. We initially tried descending _this_ side of the rock uprise, just to find out there was no way down, thus back tracking and going around the other side, which worked out a lot better.

Motion Capture

It really is winter up here.

The gents up the hill are having an issue *not* falling into the crevice.

Somebody was caught-out being happy to be out.

I'd say what this looks like, but polite language fails me.

No, it's not a signal-strength meter for a cell phone company either.

Felt like three seasons in view, summer, fall, winter.

Enjoying rolling across the slickrock field...

...to discover that what goes down...

...must go up...

...before showing off.

View of the valley from the saddle.

There was one absolutely water obstacle to deal with.

I think my toes have finally thawed. Brrrr.

Well, it was a nice visit Sedona!

Thanks guys for letting me takg along.

Y'all rock!

So, Sunday is coming.

The Triple Bypass ride is on the schedule. I don't really know how much of this I am going to be able to complete, but we'll see. Wish me luck.

Then, afterwars, in theory, off to Tucson. ChadF has very generously offered to host me for a night or so, so that I can ride Milagrosa on Monday with Sundog.

I hope Sundog isn't looking to set any trail speed records, it's not going to happen. :D

I also need to do some bike tuning in the morning. My rear wheel has been taking a hard beating this week and I think wants some spoke-luv.

Over and out, for the night.

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