Arizona Trail Magic, Day Two
Arizona Trail Magic, Day Two
"Nothing like camp coffee to get your bowels moving." Mike, the grizzled AZT veteran is stumbling his way through the darkness to the Kentucky Camp comfort station. "I was fartin' beans all night long...," he said to no one in particular, but I immediately appreciated the wisdom of my having slept on the porch, rather than inside the hostel building itself.
As I was falling asleep the night before, I was startled to hear someone breathing right next to me. I turned to my right, glancing down the porch expecting to see a large dark lump representing another racer, but saw nothing. I looked off the end of the porch, thinking that someone may have taken up refuge under the deck just below me, but no matter how hard I rubbed my eyes--nothing.
Strange.
The alien breathing was too loud to be imagined, and it was strangely in sync with my own inhale/exhale pattern. On a whim, I tried exhaling completely to see if the invisible stranger would also exhale deep and long. Sure enough, they did, exactly like me. Of course, there was no stealth breather near me, it was me: I was wheezing, something that I could not remember ever doing before.
Weird.
Ready to roll out at 4 AM, I was trying to shed the heinous aftertaste of the coffee Mike had so generously made in the spartan kitchen. It tasted like what I imagined the coffee Jamie Foxx made for Robert Downey, Jr, and Zach Galifinakis in Due Date must have tasted like: not really like coffee at all, but rather the result of hot water being poured over decayed organic matter. It did seem to contain caffeine, and for me, that was enough.
Riding in total darkness up the hill that leads away from Kentucky Camp, with only my bike headlight to lead the way, I caught an image of something in middle of the road. I was too tired to spend any mental energy trying to figure out what it was exactly, so I dutifully steered around it to the left. As the soft glow of my light illuminated the figure from the side I could see something familiar about the shape and lettering on the jersey the individual was wearing: It was Norb! Poor guy, he was standing in the middle of the road in pitch darkness attending to some private business in his nether regions when I so rudely approached with all the subtlety of a stadium lighting system. I greeted him and kept riding, feeling a little bad, for my intrusion.
Soon, Norb was just behind me as we dove down into a lightly wooded area on a nice dirt road, the cool air causing me to catch my breath a bit. Because this is the Arizona Trail, nice dirt roads don't appear often and when they do, they don't last long. Soon, we were climbing a two-track road on a steep ridge, which led to a decidedly precarious single-track trail that appeared to be carved into, or rather superimposed on top of, an endless supply of rocky ridges dotted with just now visible in the early dawn light, wild flowers. I rode past a couple of racers who had pushed on and hour or two from Kentucky Camp the night before.
After a few miles, as the sun was rising higher, bathing the landscape in a warm, orange glow; the trail opened up into a small, beautiful valley, which poured into another valley, then another, then returned to a series of ridge lines and to rocky, drop-off and hike a bike laden single-track.
It was about this point that I noticed I was being over-taken by another racer: it was Jared! Apparently, he had been one of those bivied by the trail earlier in the day. I was a bit self-conscience as I was having to dismount my bike and climb over many of the obstacles in our path and didn't want to impede Jared's progress.
"I am glad I am not the only one who has to walk this stuff," he yelled up to me from behind a large boulder that comprised the trail at one point. I was now thinking the same thing. Good, we can suffer together, at the same pace, I thought.
Soon after Jared joined me, I could smell a sweet fragrance hanging over the trail and being blow towards me on a light breeze. I had not smelled anything like it in the desert, but thought that it must be some bloom that only occurs at our current elevation. The source, however, soon revealed itself: it was a racer that we were approaching; a very chatty Scottish woman on a fully rigid frame and fork. It was either her sunscreen or bug spray, but man, did she smell wonderful.
At one point Jared and I had passed our Scottish flower and were back to just plain old desert smells, and I stopped to eat. The view was pretty impressive with the city of Tucson spread out just a couple of valleys beyond us. What was also impressive was the heat. It was approaching the mid-90s again and both Jared and I were running low on water with no prospects for finding any coming up soon.
At one point the trail pitched out onto a paved road for a small jog ("We haven't got time for that..."), across another road and then back up into the desert. As I was trying to negotiate the road crossing, I looked over my shoulder to see Jared standing over his bike talking with a man and a woman. They were Tucson locals who just happened to have been hiking in the same hills as us and being locals, had brought lots of provisions. Jared was in the middle of downing his 4th or 5th Gatorade bottle and there were an equal number of empty water bottles strewn about. The couple were extremely nice and supportive of the race, and us--offering us bottle after bottle of cold liquids. "Do you want another bottle?", the man asked Jared. "Depends. Are you offering it, 'cause I can't ask you for it." The couple laughed, "Of course! Drink as much as you want. We have plenty." Music to our ears.
"We have a number of friends from here in Tucson who were doing this race, but dropped out because of the heat," the man offered. "Really?", I asked. "Oh, yeah, they were puking and nearly passing out from the heat, and these are good riders," this additional comment likely meant to make us feel better. It worked for me. If locals were scratching because of the heat, my suffering must not be out of line.
Our bellies distended with fluid as if we were about to give birth, we bid our new friends farewell. "You've got about four to five hours before you hit Tucson, so make sure you rest in the shade if you need to." Uh-huh. Rest in the shade. This is the desert. There is no shade, as least none that we could see. The four to five hour part was what stuck in my ears. How could it be that far? Didn't I just see Tucson a couple of valleys over a bit ago?
Not long after we left our trail angels, there was once again a sweet smell wafting across the barren landscape: we were catching our Scottish friend! The three of us rode under a massive train trestle and began to spread out a bit.
At one point, I was descending towards, Colossal Cave State Park, when I encountered an older couple out for a hike. I stopped and talked with them briefly, and I learned that they were from Scotland. Instantly, I had an idea as to how to put some distance between me and our Scottish friend who was demonstrating what a tough rider she was and proving to be very difficult to shake. As I was describing the self-supported aspect of the AZT race, our sweet-smelling friend arrived. I introduced the three of them, to shrieks of national unity and surprise--this was my chance! I jumped back on my bike and sped off into the desert.
I later ran into our Scottish lady and she sarcastically, but good-naturedly, thanked me for introducing the couple to her. "All they wanted to do was talk and talk," she blurted out. "It was all I could do to get away from them!", she added. "Thanks a lot!"
He-he.
A brief rest under the shade (!) of a tree in the park, a dousing with water from a hose and I was ready to get back at it.
About an hour after leaving the park I encountered another racer as I made my way up a narrow valley rising to a small saddle that guarded the promised descent into Tucson--it was Norb! He was feeling the effects of the heat as well, and knew of a place to get water and a quick nap under the shade of some welcomed trees. Soon, he peeled off and I topped out the saddle only to see that Tucson still seemed to be a couple of valleys distant. How could that be? I wondered.
The bright side was the flowing single track that seemed to never end as a reward for reaching the saddle. A light breeze was blowing and somehow, a light cover of clouds was taking the edge off of the midday sun. At one point, I was stopped along the trail having a bite to eat, when another racer came up behind me. It was Dave Wicks, in his long-sleeve checkered flannel shirt. How he wasn't passed out from the heat, I have no idea, but he looked pretty good. "Aw mate, see I told you. Things can change like that", he snapped his fingers again.
"What in the world were you doing riding by me with only one leg last night?", I asked. "Yeah, well, I had a pretty bad crash with a car about two months before the start of the race, and I [messed] up my knee pretty badly," he said, gesturing to his left knee. "Then before Kentucky Camp I crashed on it and I knew it was going to swell up and hurt real bad, so I headed back to Sonoita." I know he thought that this was a logical answer to his problems, but Sonoita is not Mass General, just what did he hope to find there? "I met an old couple who gave me a Vicodin," he said, his face turning to a ruddy glow. "Aw, that did the trick fine, it did. I split it in half, so I have one for later as well."
As happy as I was for Dave at this point, I couldn't help but think this as a short-term solution at best, then I remembered America's love affair with opiods. It was pretty safe odds that he might be able to score a daily dose just from sympathetic strangers he would meet along the way. At that, Dave sped off, probably to find a high school parking lot somewhere. I later learned that he scratched, so I am guessing the planned medical tourism didn't pan out as well as he was hoping.
About 20 miles outside of Tucson, I was laboring up a power line climb on a two-track road, when I spotted a couple standing in the road in front of me. It was pretty obvious that I was in the middle of nowhere, so it was curious that this couple, dressed in street clothes, had any real reason to be out there. When they saw me riding towards them, the man folded his arms across his chest and turned his back towards me. The woman smiled pleasantly as I rode by, but the man, like a lighthouse, just rotated so his back continued to face me.
What a weirdo, I thought. I felt like telling him, Look, if you are a famous athlete, actor, singer, whatever, I don't follow any of those worlds, so you do not need to worry about me recognizing you, and so what if I did? Are you THAT special that you can't have anyone recognize you? From the looks of him, had I stopped, this outburst would likely have gotten me beaten up, so I am glad that I just kept riding. About four miles later the road ended in a small parking lot behind one of the ubiquitous Arizona Trail gates. In the parking lot was a solitary vehicle: a tricked out Range Rover that probably cost just this side of $100,000. It was then that my oxygen deprived brain began concocting a story....
I had decided that I needed to get out of the heat and try to re-set my thermostat, and as such I booked a room at the closest hotel to the race route, the Hilton. The room they offered me was on the Executive level, requiring a special card to gain access on the elevator. I felt bad for bringing my bike, not to mention my disgusting self, into such a nice place, but the manager behind the counter told me, "We know all about your race. We have four others staying with us tonight as well." Great, so I am not the only wimp. Terrific
Riding up the glass elevator to my elite seventh floor room and the complimentary reception with hors d'oeuvres and free booze, the lift stopped on the third floor, where I was joined by a young girl, probably about 15 years old. She looked me up and down and then looked at the light shining under the number seven on the control panel of the elevator. "Ooooh, seventh floor," she proclaimed, then added, "You must be someone special." I looked her square in the eye, "You have NO idea how special I am." She slowly turned her face back to the door, nodding thoughtfully, as if this was a completely reasonable statement. As the door closed exiting her floor, I couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes I crack myself up.
More to come.....
"Nothing like camp coffee to get your bowels moving." Mike, the grizzled AZT veteran is stumbling his way through the darkness to the Kentucky Camp comfort station. "I was fartin' beans all night long...," he said to no one in particular, but I immediately appreciated the wisdom of my having slept on the porch, rather than inside the hostel building itself.
As I was falling asleep the night before, I was startled to hear someone breathing right next to me. I turned to my right, glancing down the porch expecting to see a large dark lump representing another racer, but saw nothing. I looked off the end of the porch, thinking that someone may have taken up refuge under the deck just below me, but no matter how hard I rubbed my eyes--nothing.
Strange.
The alien breathing was too loud to be imagined, and it was strangely in sync with my own inhale/exhale pattern. On a whim, I tried exhaling completely to see if the invisible stranger would also exhale deep and long. Sure enough, they did, exactly like me. Of course, there was no stealth breather near me, it was me: I was wheezing, something that I could not remember ever doing before.
Weird.
 |
| Inspiring early morning riding |
Ready to roll out at 4 AM, I was trying to shed the heinous aftertaste of the coffee Mike had so generously made in the spartan kitchen. It tasted like what I imagined the coffee Jamie Foxx made for Robert Downey, Jr, and Zach Galifinakis in Due Date must have tasted like: not really like coffee at all, but rather the result of hot water being poured over decayed organic matter. It did seem to contain caffeine, and for me, that was enough.
Riding in total darkness up the hill that leads away from Kentucky Camp, with only my bike headlight to lead the way, I caught an image of something in middle of the road. I was too tired to spend any mental energy trying to figure out what it was exactly, so I dutifully steered around it to the left. As the soft glow of my light illuminated the figure from the side I could see something familiar about the shape and lettering on the jersey the individual was wearing: It was Norb! Poor guy, he was standing in the middle of the road in pitch darkness attending to some private business in his nether regions when I so rudely approached with all the subtlety of a stadium lighting system. I greeted him and kept riding, feeling a little bad, for my intrusion.
Soon, Norb was just behind me as we dove down into a lightly wooded area on a nice dirt road, the cool air causing me to catch my breath a bit. Because this is the Arizona Trail, nice dirt roads don't appear often and when they do, they don't last long. Soon, we were climbing a two-track road on a steep ridge, which led to a decidedly precarious single-track trail that appeared to be carved into, or rather superimposed on top of, an endless supply of rocky ridges dotted with just now visible in the early dawn light, wild flowers. I rode past a couple of racers who had pushed on and hour or two from Kentucky Camp the night before.
After a few miles, as the sun was rising higher, bathing the landscape in a warm, orange glow; the trail opened up into a small, beautiful valley, which poured into another valley, then another, then returned to a series of ridge lines and to rocky, drop-off and hike a bike laden single-track.
It was about this point that I noticed I was being over-taken by another racer: it was Jared! Apparently, he had been one of those bivied by the trail earlier in the day. I was a bit self-conscience as I was having to dismount my bike and climb over many of the obstacles in our path and didn't want to impede Jared's progress.
"I am glad I am not the only one who has to walk this stuff," he yelled up to me from behind a large boulder that comprised the trail at one point. I was now thinking the same thing. Good, we can suffer together, at the same pace, I thought.
Soon after Jared joined me, I could smell a sweet fragrance hanging over the trail and being blow towards me on a light breeze. I had not smelled anything like it in the desert, but thought that it must be some bloom that only occurs at our current elevation. The source, however, soon revealed itself: it was a racer that we were approaching; a very chatty Scottish woman on a fully rigid frame and fork. It was either her sunscreen or bug spray, but man, did she smell wonderful.
At one point Jared and I had passed our Scottish flower and were back to just plain old desert smells, and I stopped to eat. The view was pretty impressive with the city of Tucson spread out just a couple of valleys beyond us. What was also impressive was the heat. It was approaching the mid-90s again and both Jared and I were running low on water with no prospects for finding any coming up soon.
 |
| Hotter than it looks |
At one point the trail pitched out onto a paved road for a small jog ("We haven't got time for that..."), across another road and then back up into the desert. As I was trying to negotiate the road crossing, I looked over my shoulder to see Jared standing over his bike talking with a man and a woman. They were Tucson locals who just happened to have been hiking in the same hills as us and being locals, had brought lots of provisions. Jared was in the middle of downing his 4th or 5th Gatorade bottle and there were an equal number of empty water bottles strewn about. The couple were extremely nice and supportive of the race, and us--offering us bottle after bottle of cold liquids. "Do you want another bottle?", the man asked Jared. "Depends. Are you offering it, 'cause I can't ask you for it." The couple laughed, "Of course! Drink as much as you want. We have plenty." Music to our ears.
"We have a number of friends from here in Tucson who were doing this race, but dropped out because of the heat," the man offered. "Really?", I asked. "Oh, yeah, they were puking and nearly passing out from the heat, and these are good riders," this additional comment likely meant to make us feel better. It worked for me. If locals were scratching because of the heat, my suffering must not be out of line.
Our bellies distended with fluid as if we were about to give birth, we bid our new friends farewell. "You've got about four to five hours before you hit Tucson, so make sure you rest in the shade if you need to." Uh-huh. Rest in the shade. This is the desert. There is no shade, as least none that we could see. The four to five hour part was what stuck in my ears. How could it be that far? Didn't I just see Tucson a couple of valleys over a bit ago?
Not long after we left our trail angels, there was once again a sweet smell wafting across the barren landscape: we were catching our Scottish friend! The three of us rode under a massive train trestle and began to spread out a bit.
At one point, I was descending towards, Colossal Cave State Park, when I encountered an older couple out for a hike. I stopped and talked with them briefly, and I learned that they were from Scotland. Instantly, I had an idea as to how to put some distance between me and our Scottish friend who was demonstrating what a tough rider she was and proving to be very difficult to shake. As I was describing the self-supported aspect of the AZT race, our sweet-smelling friend arrived. I introduced the three of them, to shrieks of national unity and surprise--this was my chance! I jumped back on my bike and sped off into the desert.
I later ran into our Scottish lady and she sarcastically, but good-naturedly, thanked me for introducing the couple to her. "All they wanted to do was talk and talk," she blurted out. "It was all I could do to get away from them!", she added. "Thanks a lot!"
He-he.
A brief rest under the shade (!) of a tree in the park, a dousing with water from a hose and I was ready to get back at it.
 |
| The welcome shade of Colossal Cave State Park |
About an hour after leaving the park I encountered another racer as I made my way up a narrow valley rising to a small saddle that guarded the promised descent into Tucson--it was Norb! He was feeling the effects of the heat as well, and knew of a place to get water and a quick nap under the shade of some welcomed trees. Soon, he peeled off and I topped out the saddle only to see that Tucson still seemed to be a couple of valleys distant. How could that be? I wondered.
The bright side was the flowing single track that seemed to never end as a reward for reaching the saddle. A light breeze was blowing and somehow, a light cover of clouds was taking the edge off of the midday sun. At one point, I was stopped along the trail having a bite to eat, when another racer came up behind me. It was Dave Wicks, in his long-sleeve checkered flannel shirt. How he wasn't passed out from the heat, I have no idea, but he looked pretty good. "Aw mate, see I told you. Things can change like that", he snapped his fingers again.
"What in the world were you doing riding by me with only one leg last night?", I asked. "Yeah, well, I had a pretty bad crash with a car about two months before the start of the race, and I [messed] up my knee pretty badly," he said, gesturing to his left knee. "Then before Kentucky Camp I crashed on it and I knew it was going to swell up and hurt real bad, so I headed back to Sonoita." I know he thought that this was a logical answer to his problems, but Sonoita is not Mass General, just what did he hope to find there? "I met an old couple who gave me a Vicodin," he said, his face turning to a ruddy glow. "Aw, that did the trick fine, it did. I split it in half, so I have one for later as well."
As happy as I was for Dave at this point, I couldn't help but think this as a short-term solution at best, then I remembered America's love affair with opiods. It was pretty safe odds that he might be able to score a daily dose just from sympathetic strangers he would meet along the way. At that, Dave sped off, probably to find a high school parking lot somewhere. I later learned that he scratched, so I am guessing the planned medical tourism didn't pan out as well as he was hoping.
About 20 miles outside of Tucson, I was laboring up a power line climb on a two-track road, when I spotted a couple standing in the road in front of me. It was pretty obvious that I was in the middle of nowhere, so it was curious that this couple, dressed in street clothes, had any real reason to be out there. When they saw me riding towards them, the man folded his arms across his chest and turned his back towards me. The woman smiled pleasantly as I rode by, but the man, like a lighthouse, just rotated so his back continued to face me.
What a weirdo, I thought. I felt like telling him, Look, if you are a famous athlete, actor, singer, whatever, I don't follow any of those worlds, so you do not need to worry about me recognizing you, and so what if I did? Are you THAT special that you can't have anyone recognize you? From the looks of him, had I stopped, this outburst would likely have gotten me beaten up, so I am glad that I just kept riding. About four miles later the road ended in a small parking lot behind one of the ubiquitous Arizona Trail gates. In the parking lot was a solitary vehicle: a tricked out Range Rover that probably cost just this side of $100,000. It was then that my oxygen deprived brain began concocting a story....
 |
| A fine AT gate |
I had decided that I needed to get out of the heat and try to re-set my thermostat, and as such I booked a room at the closest hotel to the race route, the Hilton. The room they offered me was on the Executive level, requiring a special card to gain access on the elevator. I felt bad for bringing my bike, not to mention my disgusting self, into such a nice place, but the manager behind the counter told me, "We know all about your race. We have four others staying with us tonight as well." Great, so I am not the only wimp. Terrific
Riding up the glass elevator to my elite seventh floor room and the complimentary reception with hors d'oeuvres and free booze, the lift stopped on the third floor, where I was joined by a young girl, probably about 15 years old. She looked me up and down and then looked at the light shining under the number seven on the control panel of the elevator. "Ooooh, seventh floor," she proclaimed, then added, "You must be someone special." I looked her square in the eye, "You have NO idea how special I am." She slowly turned her face back to the door, nodding thoughtfully, as if this was a completely reasonable statement. As the door closed exiting her floor, I couldn't help but laugh. Sometimes I crack myself up.
More to come.....
Hmm they put us on the special card floor too. Maybe to keep us dirty bikepackers away from the normal customers?
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