The Mobius Trip

[DR. Rock]

it was over, but now getting dark. We made the campfire, hung stuff to dry, and cooked one of our favorite camping meals:



Dinty Moore and Special sauce.

A last cozy night hanging by the campfire, reflecting on all that we'd seen and done that day.



And before we tucked in to bed, we were treated to a lovely moonrise.



Stats for the day:

[DR. Rock]

Day 14: Friday, Sept. 19, 2008.
From Sunset Crater to Flagstaff.



Even though we were up early,



someone was having a little trouble getting her ass in gear. A second pot of coffee was in order... no more need to ration the fine java we'd been portaging all the way from NYC.



Ms. Adventure Bunny was sooo excited to meet Lilliana; "Can we go now? Are you ready yet, aunt Francine? C'mon. Let's go!"

Finally,

[DR. Rock]

with being thwarted by the San Francisco peaks. On one visit several years ago, we tried to climb Humphreys Peak, and didn't make it. Of course, we one reason was that someone had to get back to watch the Chicago Bulls in the Championship, but also we had lost the trail. .



Of course, that was before the days of GPS. (I know it existed, just not commonly in use by civilians). We had spent some time mountain biking, and I remembered some of the trails as pretty gnarly. We talked about cutting across on some of the roads that were visible on the Topo GPS maps, so long as they weren't anything too technical.



We're trying to get over Schultz Pass, but the long way. So of course we're heading opposite the arrow. Unfortunately, the route I had chosen yielded this:

[DR. Rock]

and found another possibility.



Looked like a jeep trail, pretty washed out.



And it started to get really ugly, and we decided to bail,



and just take the nicely graded Schultz Pass rd.

[DR. Rock]

Like I said, nicely graded. But nice views .

[DR. Rock]

that most of what appears as a forest service road on the Topo GPS is restricted to non-motorized use.

Without passing judgment, I've found this to be the case for N.F.'s that are in close proximity to a city/town that has upper middle class / college educated / university located / white collar / yuppie / gentrified / population. Like Flagstaff, AZ.

Far away from populated areas, the forest service roads are far less restricted, and even near populated areas there's plenty of motorized riding allowed so long as the populated area is more working class / blue collar / non-professional / non-yuppie. Like Richfield, UT.

So even if we had persisted on that jeep trail, we would have made it to within 0.7 miles of the Schultz Pass road, had to backtrack, and taken this road anyway.





I'm ambivalent about all this. I've hiked and mountain biked in this area. And it's nice not having motors around when you're doing those things. On the other hand, once something is restricted, it never gets released back. There are a lot of passions on both sides. Few compromises either.

But I was determined to find a back way into Flagstaff.

[DR. Rock]

puttering around people's back yards.



discovering all the listed through-roads that had been pinched off by Flagstaff's expanding development:



Then, finally something that looked promising:

[lowbudget]

Hey,

took me a week reading all those pages - and it was worth it!

Great report

[DR. Rock]

Originally Posted by Fourty2ri

(pŏ-stîr'ē-ər, pō-)

adj.

1. Located behind a part or toward the rear of a structure.
2. Relating to the caudal end of the body in quadrupeds or the dorsal side in humans and other primates.
3. Botany Next to or facing the main stem or axis.
4. Coming after in order; following.
5. Following in time; subsequent.

n. The buttocks.

Pick any definition from 1 through 5? or straight to N??


And I had thought all the other pictures were awesome, now I wonder what we didnt see !!

Posterity... I swear, I meant "for posterity's sake"

Main Entry: pos·ter·i·ty
Pronunciation: pä-'ster-&-tE
Function: noun
1 : all of the lineal descendants of a person
2 : all future generations

Ooops. My bad.









Busted.

[DR. Rock]

to Flagstaff, remains to be discovered.



But we had fun trying!



This is Elden Mt. Lookout road.



We followed it up a few miles,



Like most climbs, the higher it got, the more steep and consequently more washed out and technical it became.



Once I realized it wasn't going to get us to Flagstaff, in fact it was a dead end, we turned around and let the devil box take us via pavement.

[DR. Rock]

on the right,



Humphreys peak (or maybe Agaissiz) is the big one below on the left.



Even the devil box had us riding in circles trying to get to their house.

[DR. Rock]

and had been following us with Spot.





The kids were a little scared at first.



We had never met Liliana, and I don't think Leo remembered us (even though he said he did)

[DR. Rock]

and to the bikes.



Aunt Francine and Uncle David brought presents from New York...



A sweatshirt for Leo (he'll grow into it )



and Ms. Adventure Bunny for Lilliana!

[DR. Rock]

for a 2 year-old.

Scarey strange Uncle vs. Pink Adventure Bunny.



What can I say, the kid loves anything pink.

[DR. Rock]

to show where we'd been... even though we hadn't covered many miles today: