Biking the AZ Trail--Ripsey Wash Loop

Hanging upside down in a palo verde tree, arms akimbo: this is me at mile 20 of a 52-mile trail ride. I can’t get my legs untangled from the thorny branches where I landed after a half-tumble, half slide from the trail above. Couldn’t make it over that big rock in the trail, then I couldn’t unclip out of my pedals to stop the tumble. I call to Tom who is riding ahead and above me on the hill. “I heard you fall and I thought that tree was moving a lot,” he says. “Look it’s still moving!”  By the time he got back, I had extricated my shredded legs.

I stand, give myself the once over, and haul my bike back up to the trail. I walk over the stupid rock and walk a bit further before remounting.  Soon, I am back to enjoying wildflowers on this great section of the Arizona Trail near Ripsey Wash in Pinal County. Amazing purple lupin and orange poppies line the trail, while ahead yellow bristle bush paints the hills we have yet to climb.

We are doing a lollipop loop including part of the AZ300 route and some connecting dirt roads and jeep tracks. We start at Freeman Road and head for the Boulders section. We ride through the boulders and head north toward Ripsey.

 
View from the Boulders section. (All photos courtesy of Tom Furgason)

 
I dominate the trail. 

We stash extra water at the tip of the lollipop stick, at a jeep road and fence intersection. Later in the morning, we ride slowly through a sandy wash, where two cows and one bull forage. The cows run, the bull doesn’t.  It seems dangerous to stop with the bull’s hairy eyeballs upon me; and I ride by without incident.  Every sense is focused on the bull and on muscling my biketo the gate that is about 30 yards ahead. The bull turns ever so slightly toward Tom who is only 20 yards behind me.  The bull lets him pass too.  Later we agree that this was the scariest moment on the trail.

We head out of this wash and over another small ridge to Ripsey Wash. On the other side, our biggest climb begins. There is no shade, and even the wildflowers have faded.

 
I fall into a palo verde shortly after Tom takes this picture. 

“This is a pretty bleak section,” I tell Tom at a switchback that we are both hiking. “Yeah, I’m glad I’m not doing this by myself,” he replies. I wonder why the trail builders chose to go up over this mountain instead of down the wash. At the top, I realize that we have a beautiful descent along the north ridge, down toward the Gila River valley.

 

Riding on the ridgetop trail--sweet relief.

Only the Ray copper mine near Kearny mars the vista. The mine that removed half the mountainside

 
The open pit copper mine is the light color on the far mountain.

We hit our connection road; time for lunch in the shade of a scrawny mesquite tree. After lunch, we ride the highway to Hades. The sun beats down from the sky and the heat reflects from the white dirt of the road. We climb and climb and need to rest only 45 minutes later, chugging water.  We climb a bit more then head down a jeep track and into desert vegetation of yuccas and chollas—it feels at least 10 degrees cooler. We rejoin the AZ Trail and think that we might have overshot our water cache.  We both have enough to make it back to the car, or so we think.

My energy drink bottles are empty, my backpack water bladder is getting low. Then I’m out. I’m wracking my brain for anything liquid in my pack. Dried edamame beans—no. Dried fruit—no. Avocado in my sandwich—maybe. We cross a jeep road and something tells me to stop and wait for Tom, who moves a bit slowly in the heat.

Tom arrives with “Hey, this is our water cache, which is good news and bad news.” Bad news because we now have 13 miles to get back to the car, and we weren’t 13 miles from the car an hour ago as originally determined. I want to pour all my water over my head, but instead mix up some more energy drink in one bottle and drink the other. Happily, I also find an apple in my pack to eat. We rest in the shade briefly and head back toward the boulders section.

The Boulders, revisited.

 I hear my first rattlesnake of the season and warn Tom: "Go left! Snake!" We also scare numerous jack rabbits and one great horned owl.  It seems like a very long way to the car, and a lot of it is uphill on jeep tracks.We approach the car and the through-hiker water cache where a young backpacker has set up his camp for the evening. It’s about 5 pm, and doobie time for him.

I just want to get out of my stinky bike clothes and drink as much as possible. We’ve done nine hours on the trail and survived the triple challenge of heat, hike-a-bike hill climbing, and one stubborn bull.