As September winds down...

The end of September has ushered in some real Fall weather and lighting but it is still really nice out in the woods. I have been trying to ride a fair amount lately and will be heading to Show Low this coming weekend for the Tour of the White Mountains which is a mountain bike race with varying distances. I, along with my neighbor Jerrod, will be competing in the 60 mile race which is the longest option but you get the most riding for the entry fee. This past Saturday was the Pines to the Mines ride that starts at the Pay'nTake in downtown Flag and goes via dirt road, FS roads and singletrack to the old mining town of Jerome. It was a great event that attracted some great participants. The Pay'nTake is a great contributor to various outdoor sports with their support in various ways. They often have free food and beer pouring out of the side of their trailer and the Pines to the Mines was no exception. Yesterday I rode up into the Inner Basin and saw the Fall colors in full effect up high. It was really amazing. It was the first time I have been up there this year that I had to throw a jacket on for the way down. It is about that time as I have been saying. Yesterday afternoon Anne and I made it to the nursery to buy bulbs for planting today and we picked out 50 bulbs of different varieties. We then ended the afternoon at Mountain Sports to get me a ski pass for the upcoming year. 399 is a good deal for the preseason price of the pass. Ski in Flag and ride in Sedona. I guess that's not so bad....

A bit of yard work and some tiny veggies

Today I got some tools out of the garage and started digging a hole. This adventurous project was to put a piece of limestone with our address on it into the ground. The stone was cut and carved by Anne's grandfather who then drove it to Pagosa Springs from Great Bend, Kansas. It stayed in Pagosa for awhile and then Anne's dad brought it the rest of the way a couple of weeks ago. It weighs about 150 pounds I would guess but was pretty easy to manuver once the hole was dug. Other excitement recently has been the ripening of some tiny tomatoes and green peppers. The tomatoes have taken a long time to start ripening but hopefully will finish ripening before the first big frost. Luckily we have about 6 quart bags full of squash from our calabacita plants in the freezer for Thanksgiving time festivities which mainly include food and drink. On a different note, as I was looking through our photos from a couple of weeks ago I came across a photo of a dead porcupine that I found inside the shack at one of the North Rim's lookout towers. This porcupine had been dead for quite awhile and yet no one had bothered to clean it out. Now I understand keeping historically valuable building protected but come on. If a building is so remote and in a state of disrepair it should just get torn down. If the Park Service can't keep it clean of dead animals and fecal matter they are probably not to concerned with its historical value either. That is about all of the ranting I've got for this fine afternoon. Get out and enjoy fall while it lasts!

Back from the North Rim

Anne and I finally got on the road Saturday after a bike rack fiasco that engulfed all of Friday. We headed for the North Rim Saturday morning to ride the Rainbow Rim trail located in the Kaibab National Forest. The Rainbow Rim trail is an 18 mile singletrack trail along the rim of the Grand Canyon that was built primarily with mountain biking in mind. When we got up there we quickly set up camp along on of the access roads located close to the middle portion of the trail and got on our bikes to head to Timp Point which is one end of the trail. At about 4 miles into the ride I managed to slice a .5 inch tear into the sidewall of my front tire. We began to think that our trip was doomed but with the help of a Clif Bar wrapper and a couple of tubes I managed to stay riding for the rest of the weekend. The second day was marked with more riding as we rode some FS roads to access Parissawampitts Point which is the other end of the trail and we took that back to our camp to make a loop out of the days ride. When we got back we decided to move camp over to an area by the Arizona Trail so we could ride a section of the AZT before heading home yesterday morning. The section of the AZT that I rode (alone because Anne decided she better study for her Board exam coming up) was along the East Rim which was amazing as the views exploded before me not to mention that the single track was pretty fun getting to the National Park boundary. On the way back we pulled over in the Warm Fire scar to snap a couple of photos because the colors contrasting was pretty impressive. It is amazing to look back at the blood, sweat and tears that went into working that fire and to think that effort will always be locked into the rebirth of that area. It is also amazing to think about how minuscule we really are in relation to the natural cycle. Weather takes so much more of a role in the suppression of these large fires (and the growth of the fires for that matter) than we give credit. As we got back to Marble Canyon we decided to stop at Navajo Bridge and have a bit of a picnic by the mouth of the Grand Canyon before b-lining it back to Flagstaff.

A sacrificial post to thwart off the winter demons

As the inevitability of winter starts to creep back into my mind (and the fact that I did not have any current photos of anything) I decided to go back into the archives of last winter and post a nasty snow picture from the front of our house in Flagstaff. I am trying an offering to the weather gods to hold off the cold and wet of winter for as long as possible this year. Here's to wishful thinking.