MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

Happy trails... and seasons greeting!

Discretion is the better part of valour...

AFTER barely four and a half miles of the Buckhorn road, I realized that on this day... this road... was most likely going to defeat me. 

Once I'd dropped into the dry riverbed, the surface alternated between short sections of fairly hard pack, to a foot deep sand and loose gravel.

There was absolutely no thought of carrying any speed across the occasional hard surface.  Meandering along in a very crooked line, the dry wash gave very little warning of the transition between surfaces.  It all looks pretty much the same.

Normally, if my body is in better spirits, I would just dial up third gear, lean back on the seat and work my way thru the soft stuff with throttle.

The problem today was anytime I hit the quicksand... the bike would wag and shake like your long lost collie's tail.




 
 
 

 

Each time this happened the bars would literally yank my left hand off the grip and with it, my ailing shoulder felt like marshmellows mixed with cotton candy!

 

The feeling must be akin to being stabbed repeatedly with an icy hot stiletto right in the ball joint!

An old style all steel 70's Chevy Blazer rolled along on four very fat, heavily treaded tires, crewed by four teenagers.

Having parked to snap a few pics, I pushed the bike over to the side of the trail, my Icon's slipping in the gravel.  Even though the XT is about half the weight of a GS BMW, it was extremely difficult work with my shoulder in pain.

"Where does this road lead to?"  I ask the driver who didn't look more than 16, 17 tops.

"It goes up the mountain to the lookout."  the reply.

When asked if it hooks up with Cow Creek, the answer was "No."  They motored on leaving me in a cloud of dust.

I had a drink from the cantee... umm, water bottle to ponder my next move.  The arm felt like burning rubber and given the situation, I felt it best if this time... I did an about face.

So here's the lesson I always try and make to anyone contemplating doing this sort of thing.  Using the best tool in your tool box, that is... your brain... don't be a hero, you could very easily end up dead.

I turned around, that in itself in the soft sand was ordeal enough.

I LOVE THIS STUFF...

The Resort, now privately maintained and owned.

BY definition, the whole point of Dual Purpose, street trail, Adventure touring is this... the ability to explore multiple surfaces, pavement, gravel, tracks and trails.



I love this stuff!!

Not being confined to a specific road or route... not having to be concerned if you come across a construction zone on your ride, having the choice of veering off the hard pack onto that fire road heading into the hills.



Granny Smith in hand.

 Going back to many of my earliest memories riding bikes, I've always been fascinated by that dirt road leading away from the path well travelled.  I would ride my 1968 Suzuki A 100, which was nothing more than a street bike with a chromed high mounted exhaust pipe, across cow pastures, down gravel roads to little lakes, charging around back lots. 


Choices.

 During a summer visit from my Hungarian uncle, Julius... we rode my '68 Yamaha 305 Big Bear* scrambler from my home in Edmonton to Fort MacMurray, he was amazed at the length of the ride.  In one very long day, we had practically rode the entire depth of Hungary, more than half of it on dusty gravel roads.  Nearly 300miles!  For a guy that had a simple two cycle Csepel 125, with dual solo seats and a 3 speed transmission, a long ride being the home in Jaszkiser to Szolnok 40 miles away, it was quite the experience!

Living in British Columbia, riding in southern AB or down in Baja or here in the vicinity of Phoenix... you will never explore all the countless back paved or unpaved roads.  NEVER!  You will die long before your book of journeys is completed.  If I get another chance at another lifetime, and I don't come back as a hedgehog or stripper's pole, I am going to ride every chance I get!  There is nothing like it.


Target practice!

 Leaving the Hot Springs grounds, I follow a FORD pick-up truck, hauling a trailer with cattle and horses in it.  He was picking up and dropping off livestock at various small ranches along my route.  Quite a contrast between horse and stetsons vs my Yamaha and Nolan helmet.  Almost two very distinct yet somehow similar lifestyles don't you think?

I've ridden much of the Castle Hot springs, Humbug creek, Crown King and Cow creek roads in this area, and I am still fascinated finding places I have not seen or been.  Even on this fall trip to Glendale, I wasn't going to be able to get everywhere.  Simply not enough time.

I took Buckhorn road north.  Thinking I remembered on the morning Google map that this route would ultimately connect me with the NW end of the Cow Creek.  Dropping into the dry riverbed, following that truck yet again, the road became quite challenging sand and very loose pea sized gravel.

Normally I would relish such a challenge, but this trip south I was suffering from an aggravated left shoulder.  Of course this shoulder suffered a substantial injury when I was rear ended in Calgary in 2002. Lifting weights just before leaving Canada, I had overworked it one day and as a result, lost much of my already reduced range of motion.  To make matter worse, there was little strength and acute pain whenever I tweaked it.



Dual purpose anyone?



By it's very nature, the type of riding I was doing right now did nothing but tweak an already painful injury! 

*The Big Bear was named after the city and area around Big Bear California where some of the hairiest off road enduro/scrambles took place.

Castle Hot Springs



View of the famous Castle Hot Springs from the riverbed.

    Taking the opportunity while exploring the equipment graveyard on the beginning stages of Castle Hot Springs Road, I shed some early morning clothes.  Even though the temps were 'unseasonably cool' according to the weather service, under the blazing sun, I was feeling the heat.


Well manicured somewhat dry lawns still abound.

 Remounting the 350, I continued west on the dry riverbed, following the course that Mother Nature, not government engineers, had planned.  In a short distance I once again came across Castle Hot Springs.  Back in 1865, then commander of Fort Whipple, Colonel Charles Craig, had defeated a group of Apache raiders, in the vicinity of Salvation Peak.


Local Rancher's truck climbing from the riverbed

 While there, they stumbled on the healing waters that those same Apaches revered... calling the place Castle Creek Hot Springs.  In 1896, the first actual resort opened and by the twenties and thirties, famous Americans including the Vanderbilt's, Rockefeller's and well known westerns' writer Zane Grey, had established bungalows here.




Very pretty spot even today.

Local word is that Hollywood celebrities often came for a discreet clandestine getaways with 'friends'.

During WW2, many convalescing G.I.'s spent what I would say, were pleasurable and peaceful times here.



A great little day ride from my home in Glendale!



Given the three continually filling thermal pools, and the total peace and tranquility, you can easily see why it was used as such.

I'm told that Arizona's first telephone was installed here and it's number was appropriately enough... # 1.

The residents of Crown King may dispute that claim as they say they had telephone service in 1897.

Regardless, even though the resort has been closed for decades (after a 1976 fire destroyed much of it) it's still a wonder to gaze upon, while munching a sandwich.

The CATS of Cow Creek...




 
I can still vividly remember the first time I rode here...

The date was February, 1998.

Deb and I had taken six weeks off from our jobs, her at Mountain Equipment
Co-op, and I at Bow Cycle.

I had a disagreement with Jimmy, the owner... over the raise and position he'd enticed me with, that after 2 years, was never going to happen... and I planned on leaving soon after my return.



Yupper... this is the way to Crown King!

 In preparation for our long planned 6 week Baja adventure, I'd purchased a Dodge Ram Van that ran on propane.  Having taken the bench seat/bed and the center captain's chairs out, I'd fashioned a box in which to bolt our identical XT 600's.

The same one I am riding even today.

Well, not today as it's about minus 10 and snow on the ground in abundance.



Good advice, ya think?!




Beware of flash floods!

 That trip we drove the Ram to Phx, left it at the Sunflower Resort in the care of Deb's Mom, Nadia... and once I'd gotten the bugs sorted out, we departed southwestward to Yuma and the crossing into Baja.

It was my first of many Baja trips and I'm not done yet!

We covered 6200 kilometers averaging about 300km a day on our riding days.  What a fab experience that ride was.  Finally, after many years of reading and planning, there I was.

Ensenada, Mike's Sky Ranch, Mulege, the Cortez, Todos Santos, Guerrero Negro, La Paz and even Cabo, umm... including the Gringo part at Land's End.  We even detoured into L.A. on the return leg, and visited with her sister Treena* (not her real name) and lane split to my great delight. 

Now how come this is not allowed here?  Everywhere I travelled in Europe is was accepted practice and if CA was agreeable, then why not other jurisdictions, like Calgary, Vancouver or Phoenix!

*OK, it is her real name, but she's not really a girl...*

**Okay, Treena is her real name and she is a girl!


 Hard to believe that was nearly 14 years ago!



Doesn't get much purtier than this...





Or this...

 Since that time I have been so dang lucky to have travelled and biked in about a trillion places.

Now that I have a cute little abode in Glendale, I plan on doing more of the SW US of A.  New Mexico.  Utah.  Nevada.  California, maybe even get over to Texas, maybe... even Florida.  I'd love to ride the Cays once!

Anywaaaay... I digress.

Presently my mount, a 1998 Yamaha XT 350, was purring away beneath my butt, as I turned up the Castle Hot Springs Rd.

Much of the off road public road riding here in these parts is thru mountainous terrain. 

At times I was looking down into canyons, others up from dry riverbeds.




Boneyard.



The temperature was a pleasant mid 70's today, maybe a little hotter.  This is just about perfect riding weather.

It had been awhile since I rode this particular leg, obviously Mother Nature had altered the terrain somewhat, but much of it was familiar to me.

Old deuce and a half!



Snakes?  Scorpions?? Tarantulas???



Having passed thru another canyon, I rounded a corner in the riverbed and came across a mechanical bone yard of sorts.

There were a number of decrepit trucks, dozers and other pieces of assorted construction equipment I'd never seen before.

Judging by the rust and state of umm, disrepair, they'd been roasting under the sun for quite sometime.

I wasn't sure what all this machinery was doing out here or who it may have belonged to, but old stuff of any type (yes I have had older girlfriends in my life!) carry a fascination for me bordering on maniacal!

As a kid I loved hanging around old car wreckers, the city bus dump, planes and bike shops :)

This was a rare find and a treat.  The only thing that worried me was the crack of a Winchester or the zing past my earlobe of a 30.30 slug ...

After all, this is in some ways, still the Wild Wild West.

Flashback... another day... another Zoo!!

BUDAPEST!!!

You know, the first time I visited the famous Budapest Zoo, which btw is on the Pest side of the river, (pronounced Pesht) I was 15 years of age.  The year was 1970, my aunt (Mom's sister) was dying of a hideous cancer.  This was my first exposure in my young life to the death of another human and to the ravages that this particular disease brings.

Somewhere along the way during that time, I was fortunate enough to be hooked up with a delivery driver for my Uncle Julius' state collective.  Whisked thru the countryside, dropping off/picking up parts in a small van, allowed me to do something I don't get much of, that is... being a passenger.

That little van had a small three cylinder air cooled engine of two cycle design.  IN those days, two strokes were very common especially in Eastern Block countries.  Pulling up to a gas pump, you dialed in the correct oil and gas mixture and the pump dispensed mixed gas directly into the fuel tank.

On this particular trip, we had a mechanical failure.  A seized piston slowed us from normal turtle, to snails pace in the underpowered little box.  Somewhere in the suburbs of Budapest (Boo da pesht) next to a curbside, the two of us dismantled the engine using hand tools, the driver lifted the damaged cylinder and leaving me with the vehicle, he left with parts in hand to get them repaired/replaced.  Some hours later we had the motor put back together, and went on our way... a haze of blue smoke pouring from the exhaust something akin to being backstage at a 60's Jimmy Hendricks concert...

... or a scene from that 70's show!

Try doing that to any car or truck today!  Not a chance buddy... that's one thing about those countries in those days.  You could actually fix your Lada yourself with hand tools and some mechanical know how.

Anyway... I digress.  At some point I got to see the Budapest zoo, and a very sad visit it was indeed.  Like most things in communist Europe at that time, it was at least twenty something years in the past.  Be it cars and gasoline pumps, to medical procedures and hospitals.

The zoo had those tiny 10X10 cages where animals pawed at the mesh, or wandered aimlessly around the perimeter.  I remember the same tiny little cubicles the first time I visited the Calgary zoo.

This time around with travelling companion/then girlfriend Barb, was a much improved and very modern, international standard facility.  Given the small location, the city like the entire country, is pretty compacted... they have done a fabulous job of utilizing the limited space.

We saw animals unique to the general area like wild boar, to storks, a fine aquarium, waterfowl, reindeer, rhino's and giraffes.

After a long cool day, both of us were quite exhausted, and may have even dozed on the subway ride back to the burbs.

Flashback... A Day at the Zoo.

Phoenix has several wildlife parks and Zoo's, including the City Zoo, largest non profit facility in the USA. Located at  455 N Galvin Pkwy Phoenix, it's easily reached from any number of freeways.

Several loop trails will bring you to a variety of attractions...

There's the Arizona Trail, the African, the Tropics and the Childrens.

I've had the pleasure of going twice last year and will make it a stop on my next extended stay.

Parking is abundant, city buses come and go on a regular schedule and the staff is helpful.

There is a central court as you enter, where you can fill up on food and drinks.

There's lots of shade, it can get pretty hot at times.  I was there in December and it was plenty warm out in the sun.  Can't inagine what it would be like in the middle of summer!

The animal enclosures are large by typical zoo standards and most of the large pens have more than one viewing possibilities.

Take a picnic lunch, sit out in a shaded location and enjoy your day...

If you see a jungle cat in a tree, don't fret, he won't harm you if you give him respect (and jungle cat food)

If it's especially warm out, you may find him stretched out in some shady corner.  I suggest a telephoto lens for a close up of the jungle cat in his native environment.

Just don't disturb him, if you can help it.  After all, they like to sleep 22 hrs a day.

Know what I mean...

Driving in the jungle is not recommended... breakdowns can leave one stranded.

Take the day off and visit the Zoo!

Calgary, Toronto, Phoenix, or Budapest!