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Ride report from today 2/17 and pics

By DUSTEE,
in Southwest

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JAADOG

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Water, rocks and stuff, Sean or harry has to do the ride report!

http://www.putfile.com/pic/7691894

Click on the slideshow ..use lowwer right button the speep them up. Anutter great day of ridin in the Big AZ!

NO SNOW PICS AND DID YOU FIND A BETTER WAY OUT IF YOU RODE THE (DEADENDER) I GUESS THATS WHAT WE CAN CALL IT.NICE PICS ,LESS WATER FROM THE LAST TIME WE RODE UP THERE.

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Grand Master

harjp1959

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After the Bradshaw Mtn ride with "El Donaldo", I had developed an acute aversion to water. This is, after all, supposed to be the desert. That plus a few weeks of splashing around at P&D, and I thought I was done and over with aqua-dirt biking. Until today.

Woody is usually early to the staging area, so when I showed up at 9:30 and found myself alone at first, and then menaced by the arrival of middle aged men hauling quads, I pulled out my riders list and called Woody and Sean. No answer from either. But then Woody pulled up and Sean, as it turns out, was already there, having spent an hour getting his bike muddy.

We headed off, entering the wash that parallels Hewitt Station Rd. a few miles from where we staged. I've crossed this wash before when doing the Montana Mtn loop. It's usually wide and dry and dusty. Well today, it was still wide, but there was a lot of water flowing through it.

I tried to hang back while Woody and Sean went blasting through the water. Sean had no problem riding in Woody's wake, and they were both soaking wet 20 minutes into the ride. I hung back so far that I got left behind! I figured Woody would lead us out of the water as soon as possible (little did I know!), so I jumped on the first jeep track out of the wash. When it was clear they were no where to be found, I turned around and waited back in the wash until Sean came and got me.

After that, I stayed close and gave up on staying dry. My new boots don't keep water out any better than my old boots. Nothing like an inch of water sloshing around the insides of your boots at 10:30 in the morning!

We headed about 12 miles up the wash. Two-thirds of the way, it got tighter and a lot rockier, so we spent a few miles picking our way through a wet rock garden. After making our way through the rocks and out of the wash, we took a little break. It was a really pretty day and this is one of the most beautiful areas (southeast of the Superstitions), so it was great just to be outside.

When we got going again, we made our way up some 2-track to a trail Woody said he wanted to try. This was also 2-track, but winding and very rocky with frequent dips across narrow washes and blocked in by trees and bushes. The trail would open up every now and again for thirty or forty yards, and then it was back to rock hopping and scaling up and down short steep rock piles. This is my favorite kind of riding and I had a blast. I think we did another 10-12 miles on this trail.

The trail finally dead-ended and Sean pinpointed our location using his GPS and the Mesa Ranger District Tonto map. We were right next to the 'M', if I remember correctly.

We had been out about 3 hours by now, and Sean had to be back to the trucks in 2 hours, so we began to make our way back. I wanted to take the same trail we had just come up, but that would have taken too long. Woody knew a short cut.

The next thing I know, we are back in a wash that is a total, flat out boulder garden. No path through. No discernible line. Just point the front wheel at any of several dozen boulders and pick your way over and through. It was seemingly virgin terrain. We must've knocked dust that had been sitting undisturbed for a hundred million years off those rocks. It was only a mile or so through this shit, but if felt a lot longer. Woody, on his fancy hoity-toity Euro-tractor, calmly crawled through it while Sean and I kept stalling out.

Once we hit the road again, I figured it was an easy cruise back to the trucks. But Woody had other ideas. Seems the water he had soaked himself with in the morning was starting to dry out, so it was back into the big wash. After a short, narrower rocky section, the wash opened up wide with 4-8" inches of water across most of it, punctuated by frequent sand bars and occasional elevated rocky sections. But it was mostly low, wide and wet for the better part of 8 miles or so.

Sean took the lead and opened it up. I stayed about 30 yrds. behind him and matched his line so I wouldn't have to worry about hitting a rock or getting bogged down in deep water or sand. We probably got up to 55+ mph for several seconds here and there. Plenty fast for me. And flying through the water like that and skipping across the sand was a total blast.

We were only a few miles from the truck at this point, and again I figured we were going to hit the FS road and call it a day. But Woody, who I learned today used to surf and is a true water baby, has one last round of aquatics in mind. The wash had become very rocky along the edges again, and the water was flowing deeper and faster through the middle. So of course Woody plunged right in, crossing back and forth through what was now 18-24" of water. We passed a father and son on quads coming the other way who had stopped in front of one of the deeper sections. The dad was turning around while the son watched us splash through the water. I think the kid would rather have been riding with us.

We were back at the trucks a little after 2:30 -- four and half hours of outdoors in amazing Arizona on a picture perfect day. We had spent much of the time (when we weren't in the wash) winding through small canyons in the middle of truly stunning scenery. Exploring, working our way over a bunch of technical terrain that nothing like a dirt bike handles, and finding ourselves in the middle of absolutely gorgeous nowhere.

Thanks Woody and Sean.

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