Durango, Colorado

We have arrived. Colorado is one of the states that we have been excited to visit ever since this trip was first conceived. The Rocky Mountains, deep powder skiing, legendary mountain biking... So grab a snack and a drink - this is a long one...

Our first stop was Durango, near the four corners of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona. Four days later, I can say that this probably my favorite town of the trip thus far. A great main street with loads of good stores, restaurants, cafes and bars that cater to locals and tourists alike; a bike friendly town plus a trolley; an amazing trail system right from town into the San Juan National Forest; a river with trout fishing and white water rapids that flows right through town; easy access to 10000 - 14000 foot peaks and the snow sports that go along with them; an actively oriented population. One of the few places we've been where we've taken a peek at the real-estate section.

My first order of business was to ride the trails. I identified a trail system that started right at the edge of downtown, where the mountain meets the city - the Telegraph trail system. Starting out at 6500', I climbed all of the way up to 7500' before my lungs exploded and I turned back downhill. A great ride, almost all single track, and amazing scenery:


You can see another rider coming up on the trail that I rode to get to the top:


We drove up into the mountains, through Coalbank pass at 10640', where we stopped to marvel at the deep snow that blanketed the land:


Nancy and Kinsey stand on about 4 feet of snow next to a rest house. The slope behind her is popular with skiers and boarders who trudge up to the ridge top and shred back down:


Also popular up top was snowmobiling, back country skiing and snowshoeing. Beautiful mountains:


Our destination was Silverton, a mining town turned recreational destination - pretty quiet this time of year. The tourist season doesn't really get going until May, but it was still fun to visit. Here is the town as seen from the narrow road carved into the mountainside on the way there:


Colorful buildings, fun shops, bars, restaurants. We enjoyed walking up and down main street, and ducked into a cafe for coffee, tea and hot apple pie.


Also, found Gigantor's replacement while in town:


The next day was windy and much cooler, so we went down to Durango town center and walked around, poking into shops...


and had an excellent lunch at a beautiful French restaurant, Jean-Pierre Bakery.


Then we moseyed into another main street establishment, The Irish Embassy, where a full-blown ceiligh was under way. Every Sunday afternoon a dozen or so musicians congregate there and play Irish music. It was really great - as good as anything we saw on Cape Breton!


And then there's Mesa Verde National Park. About 45 minutes from Durango, this is the site of all of the Puebloan cliff dwellings, and they are amazing! Tucked under massive overhangs in the canyon walls, mortared, hand-hewn stone structures were nestled in the nooks and crannies, housing entire villages of 100 or more people. Most were only accessible by scaling the cliff walls, often using shallow dents hollowed into the rock to form a tenuous stairway to the mesa top where all of the farming and hunting was done.


This is the interior of a kiva - a sunken room accessible via a roof hole - an ancient ceremonial underground men's club.


This place really sparks the imagination. At these ruins, more than any others I've seen, I can almost see the Indian peoples going about their lives, grinding corn, tending fires, scaling the cliff walls carrying stones, wood, food, water, tools. It's a unique and remarkable place.



And that's not all...

The Animas River flows through town, and along it is a paved multi-use trail, 7 miles long. Nancy and I rode our bikes along much of it. One section, which has a nice series of drops and rapids, is outfitted with a system of cables and gates, used to set up a slalom coarse for white-water paddling. Here is Nancy next to the river, and some of those gates (not deployed):


We watched a guy run this section in one of these pontoon-style white-water boats. These things can handle the most challenging rapids with ease, so negotiating these little features (class III?) took no effort. Still, pretty cool to watch.


But its not all a bowl full of roses out here on the road...

We took Toby to a local vet because he still isn't putting much weight on the leg that he hurt in New Mexico. Just as we feared, he's ruptured his ACL in his right knee. We'll have the surgery done when we're in the Denver area most likely. Its expensive surgery, and Toby will have 6 or 8 weeks of recovery, during which time he'll be restricted from hiking. Bummer.

Lastly, my maternal grandmother, who would have been 95 year old later this month, died peacefully from lung cancer. It's sad, but not unexpected. It'll be hardest on my grandfather, who, with their poodle, Brownie, will live in their house alone. When Laurel and I were kids, Grandma would watch us during the day. She had lots of toys for us to play with, plus sugary cereal and snacks, soda, and color television, stuff we didn't get at home! We loved her then and always. I fly today to Ithaca, New York, to be with the family and attend a service for my grandmother. Rest in peace, Margaret Albrecht (1916-2011).

Santa Fe

We made our way eastward, crossing back into New Mexico, until finally entering Albuquerque, at which point we turned north. We had identified an Army Corps campground closer to Santa Fe, but were so tired of driving that we stopped short, in a town called Bernalillo. Coronado city RV park wasn't anything special, but also was adequate and inexpensive, so we settled in. The Rio Grande borders the campground to the east, and we took the dogs down to walk and swim in its cool waters. Unfortunately, in his frisky antics, Toby managed to hurt himself, perhaps pulling a muscle or ligament. He wouldn't use his right rear leg, and it made for a long walk back to the Whale. Even now, four days later, there is not much improvement. If he's not using it by Monday we'll have to find a vet to look at it.

Anyway, as I usually do at each new place we visit, I perused the web looking at porn (April Fools!) looking for bike trails. I found quite a few between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, and selected one near the former, at Elena Gallegos in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. Here I found a decent network of trails, mostly smooth, sandy single track, but on one side, where it was hillier, there were many rocks and boulders to make it much more fun. I also met up with a friendly threesome of riders, who guided me around for a bit, whooping it up on the corners, before I excused myself so that I could ride at my own pace (faster!). These trails are at about 6500 feet of elevation, and I felt it, especially during the first half of the ride, when I was doing a bit of climbing. (Riding, threesomes, whooping, heavy breathing...does kind of sound like porn!) Here is one of the fun, bouldery sections:


Adjacent to our campground is the Coronado State Monument, a ruin of an adobe pueblo (town). Adobe doesn't hold up well over time - it pretty much just washes away when it gets wet. The Kuaua Indians who built the village back in the 1300s were constantly making repairs. As such most of what the archaeologists uncovered has washed away, leaving eroded ruins behind:


The main objective of our visit here was to check out Santa Fe. We went downtown in the afternoon and spent a few hours walking around the old city streets, admiring the adobe (or feau-dobe) architecture that the city is known for. Here is the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi:



All around the plaza are countless galleries and shops selling clothes, blankets, figurines, jewelry and pottery. After two of three they all start to look the same, but much of the merchandise is beautiful, particularly the Hopi pottery. But wow, very expensive! I picked up one small bowl, saw the tag on the bottom read $2900, and put that sucker right back down! I could buy another mountain bike for that!
Here is a typical street view.


Along a nice little "riverside" park there were several little totem-pole statues. If you click to expand this one you'll see a woodpecker going for the gills:


Afterwards, we wandered down to the Railyard district...


...and had a nice meal at La Choza, a cute little New Mexican restaurant, where the standout dish was their green chili stew, which was deliciously tasty, and very hot. Not ridiculously so - enough to get my scalp a'sweating, but not so much that my tongue and lips lost feeling. Exceptional!

Petrified Forest National Park

Our route took us through Flagstaff, where the temperature dropped 20 degrees and there were still patches of snow on the ground, and then back down onto the Colorado Plateau where we leveled off and drove through a monotony of endless plains. Our destination was the Petrified Forest National Park. A gift shop just south of the entrance offered free dry camping, or $10 for electric hookup. With high winds and a night-time low around freezing, we opted for electricity, and settled in for the night.

We spent most of the next day in the park, marvelling at the amazing assortment of petrifed logs that have emerged from the eroding soil here.


This patch of ground was once near Earth's equator, and under water. 225 million years ago a stand of trees toppled into the fresh water, and in time they became waterlogged and sank to the bottom. Over the next couple of million years minerals displaced the cellulose of the wood and they became stone. Eventually, as the continents drifted apart and the plateau was pushed up, subsequent erosion brought these ancient trees to the surface once more.


Although the dogs were not impressed, we found the colors beautiful and intriquing.




Surrounding these countless broken logs is the painted desert, an equally impressive series of low hills striped with various layers of tinted rock and sediment.


A hard, dry, beautiful environment.

Back at camp, while sorting out the evening meal, we noticed a man setting up camp, travelling alone on a Kawasaki motorcylcle. Finding no available water, he wandered over and I filled up his bottle from our copious supply. We got to chatting, and I invited him to dinner, as I had, unusually and fortuitously, prepared more that the two of us could eat. So, over curried chicken, gin & tonics and beer, we traded stories. Tom, from Vancouver, rode down into Mexico and, joined by his wife who has one of those, whaddyacallem...jobs, they continued down to Guatemala. Sounds like a great travel adventure, and helped alleviate for us some of the media-inspired concerns about travelling south o' the border. He's on his way back north now, and we're glad that our paths crossed.

Sedona

Our next camp was at Dead Horse State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona. Only 30 or so miles from Prescott as the raven flies, it still took us an hour and a half to get there. The more direct route, 89A, is a tangle of switchbacks climbing a coupla thousand feet up and down over Mingus Mountain, and is unsuitable for trucks and trailers. We took a longer, but less demanding, circle route. The park is nice, with very large sites and great views of Mt. Mingus and the surrounding mesas.
Here is Gigantor and the Whale settled into our site at Dead Horse Ranch:


The park is popular with hikers, mountain bikers, and horseback riders. This cowboy rode down a trail that passed right by our rear window:


The trails are not only all bike-friendly, but are also bike-awesome, and I had a great time riding on the trails right from camp, way up into the hills. The seven mile long loop was full of great features to ride over and off of:


Great scenery, too:


But for scenery, down the road in Sedona is where it gets truly amazing. Words cannot describe the beauty, and pictures hardly do it justice either. I took the bike into town to sample a few of the outstanding trails that criss-cross the landscape all around the city. Here I am riding the Templeton trail at the foot of the Cathedral formation:


It was a slow ride, not because of the trail - because of the scenery. I was contantly stopping to admire the view and take pictures:


The next day we all went into Sedona, and Nancy, Toby and I hiked up the Cathedral Trail and along the slickrock. Nancy was equally impressed with the views...


...whereas Toby was more impressed with the smells!



Afterwards we had an excellent meal at Elote Cafe, a Mexican restaurant which received high praise in on-line reviews, and rightly so. It reminded us of our favorite local back home, River Tavern, in its creative and delicious dishes prepared with care, and emphasis on local ingredients. From the signature Elote dip of roasted corn, cream & chili, the smoked chicken enchiladas and pork carnitas, to the mexican chocolate pie, every bite made us pause and savor.

Also near camp are the ruins of a native american pueblo, preserved as Tuzigoot National Monument. The stone remains of this hilltop village is fascinating. Each stone enclosure, once covered with a wood/adobe structure, was accessible from above by ladders. The rooftop entry also served as a chimney to allow smoke from cookfires to escape. Many of the rooms still contain the grinding stones used to pulverize corn into meal.


And, clinging to the steep slopes of Mingus Mountain, is the town of Jerome, a copper mining town that was once nearly abandoned, but is now a thriving artists community. The narrow streets that are cut into the mountainside are lined with buildings both abandoned and refurbished, containing great little shops, restaurants, bars and lodging. A really cool little community.



So, we really liked the Sedona area. This is a part of the country that warrants further exploration, and is one of very few places we've visited that made us want to pick up a newspaper to take a look a the local real estate section.

Prescott, Arizona

It was a little bit hard to leave the summery weather and cool water of the Colorado River, but wanted to give our air conditioner a break :) so we packed up and headed further east. The drive to Prescott, Arizona, was a real workout for Gigantor, especially the last of the four hours. We started at under 500' above sea level, and over the course of the drive climbed up to over 6200 feet before coming down into Prescott which sits at just under a mile high. A bad fuel economy day for sure. (I am often asked about our fuel economy. We average 11.5mpg under tow, and 16 otherwise) On the way up the steep switchbacks I had my eye on the transmission temperature. On the way down the exhaust brake once again proved its worth, keeping gravity at bay.


Point of Rocks campground, in Prescott, is in an area called Granite Dells, which has beautiful rock formations in pink granite. Its great to be able to walk out of the campground onto trails through such amazing landscapes.



The Prescott area has an amazing collection of trail systems. Most are multi-use (hike/bike/horse), and all are extremely well documented. The town wants to become a mountain biking destination, and definitely has the quantity and diversity of trails to draw crowds. I rode an excellent system of trails in the Granite Basin Recreational Area. The trails I rode were betwen 5500 and 5900', so I was definitely feeling the elevation, but the trails were so much fun, and scenery outstanding.


Just downhill from the campground is Watson Lake, where the rock formations surround, and are surrounded by water. Great trails wind around the rocks and shoreline.


I donned by pads and took the bike into the dells for some slickrock and boulder riding that was crazy fun:


And then Nancy and I rode an easier trail down around nearby Willow Lake:


So, lots of hiking and biking, and we just scratched the surface of what this town has to offer. We're moving tomorrow, but not far: just up the road towards Sedona, which also boasts a host of outdoor recreational opportunities. This is a great part of the country, and we're loving it!