Arizona Trail Race 750, Day One

Arizona Trail Race, Day five

The only way I am going to stop rolling is to slam my head into the ground.

I am suspended above the ground--momentarily--completing my second somersault, having been pitched over my handlebars while descending a steep, rocky road in the middle of the Arizona desert. My right thumb is hurting badly enough that I know I have done some damage to it in my initial contact with the ground and I tell myself to keep my arms tucked at my side to prevent either a further injury, or doing the same to my left hand.

The Gila River is out there somewhere

Seeing the rocky terrain come back into view, with the additional hazard of desert flora quickly approaching, I resolutely thrust my helmeted head onto the ground. Crack. There is audible evidence of contact as my helmet does its job by deforming with the rock it has struck, taking the worst of the impact away from my skull. Amazingly, this contact does exactly what I had hoped that it would--it stops my movement immediately. As the literal dust settles around me, I triage my right thumb, the thumb I have broken twice before, one episode requiring surgical repair. Clearly, I have a habit of falling on my right thumb that needs to be remedied sometime, but at this point I have more pressing issues to deal with. 

Pain is already throbbing through my hand, and I realize that a good orthopaedic evaluation will need to happen ASAP before swelling masks some of the damage that may be present. Thoroughly checking out bones and ligaments, I determine that nothing is significantly amiss, although I am saddened to see a small tear in my favorite cool weather gloves, right at the base of my right thumb nail. I check my helmet light, which I am sure has been broken off by my collision with the ground, but find it is in tact, although aimed nearly ninety degrees from the front of the helmet. Nothing a quick twist of the wrist can't resolve. My helmet, on the other hand, is much worse for the wear, and will be retired after this race. More importantly, as my thinking clears, I realize that my neck is completely unfazed by my reckless self-arrest technique. As the day goes on, I am more and more aware of the stupidity of my snap decision, and more and more thankful that nothing bad happened. It would have been so easy for something bad to happen.

The day had begun with so much joy and promise. Riding away from my--thankfully--scorpion-free bivy site in the dark, I was following Norb's only hours old tire tracks across smooth and flowy single track, rising and falling with the gentle desert terrain. A couple hours in, just as the sun was rising, I rode past a racer bivied beside the trail, and I mean right beside the trail. He bolted upright as I passed by, with a cheery, Good morning! Only later did I think it possible that he had only recently called it a night and I may have interrupted his beauty sleep. Oh well, you snooze, you lose in this game.

Despite the absolute remoteness of the trail I was on, there was a startling sign of civilization: tall, aluminum power line towers that stood as cheap, modern mimics of the ageless saguaro cactuses surrounding them. The single track trial had been widened to a narrow road and covered in baseball-sized, sharp rock allowing for the passage of the heavy equipment needed to erect these purveyors of excited electrons from point A to point B. As such, the riding became a bit rougher and found myself having to pick my lines more carefully as to avoid an untimely puncture. 

Rounding a rather picturesque butte, topped by an imposing tower, the road pitched downward into yet another gully. Happy to enjoy the benefits of some free energy, I let my wheels fly down the steep, rocky slope, only too late realizing that I was on a collision course with significant trouble. The recent rains had washed through the bottom of this hill, creating a ditch about a foot deep and two or three feet wide that marked the end of the descent and the beginning of the equally steep climb out of the gully. The walls of this ditch were wheel crushingly vertical and approaching fast. I grabbed a handful of brake--too much, as it turned out--and was instantly sliding on the loose rock. As much as I wanted to let go of the brakes, I knew that if I did, I would regain my momentum and pile-drive the sharp, dirt wall directly in my path.

Funny thing about bikes: once a front wheel loses traction, it is nearly impossible to start it rolling again, especially on a downhill slope. Cycling physics being what they are, my front wheel turned sideways under the stress of the situation and I was immediately airborne.

With only a sore thumb, a few tears in my clothing and a bruised ego, I pushed my bike up the steep, rocky slope that served as a mirror-image to the one I had just descended with such grace. The pressure of the bars against my right thumb caused a significant amount of pain and I knew that it was going to be a challenge to use my thumb in the way that I would need to in order to shift gears on my rear derailleur. Sure enough, releasing the shifter was fairly easy and pain-free, but shifting down--moving the chain up the cassette--was excruciating. I kept reminding myself that structurally, my thumb was fine and that I was only experiencing soft tissue pain, but it wasn't really helping matters much; the pain was real and I found myself shifting with my left hand in a dangerous, cross-over maneuver that I knew was not going to be practical when the AZT returned to its normal, sadistic self.

Despite all of the negativity of my crash, the beauty surrounding me was enough to bring me back into the present reality and I was again enjoying my lonely trek through the desert. As the sun rose, so did the heat, the unrelenting heat, that had marked every day of the AZT 750 thus far. I was good on water, thanks to the Freeman cache, but knew that I would have to re-supply my liquid reserves at the Gila river which I could just make out the route of far in the distance, at the base of a rising slope that met the cobalt blue sky with a jagged, rocky edge.

Dropping into Kelvin, or the trailhead near Kelvin, I was relieved to find a cooler that had been left by some kind trail angel. I opened it with anticipation, only to find a little cutie orange and an airline sized bottle of Jack Daniels floating on top of a foot, or so, of water. The crushed Coke and Tecate cans littering the ground around the cooler suggested that there had been better things on offer earlier in the day. I quietly swore at Norb under my breath.

I sat down in what little shade was available with a formerly frozen burrito and newly-acquired second and third courses of lunch, listening to a podcast detailing What every person should know about Medicare before turning 65. I know, I know, but it was interesting and informative. 

Earlier in the morning, I had passed a woman hiking alone, only to be passed by her when I stopped for a snack and then to awkwardly have to pass her again on a downhill section of trail. I wondered how in the world she was getting on in terms of water and food, carrying only a small-ish backpack miles and miles away from anywhere. I was thankful for the efficiency of two wheels, despite the very real and previously noted dangers inherent to such a mode of travel.

A first glimpse of the Gila River

Crossing the Gila river, I was disappointed to find that it lived up to its billing as a slow-moving, gray/green, semi-liquid. This was not the stuff of water resupply, at least not in a perfect world, but the AZT is anything but perfect. The trail paralleling the river is cut into a rocky mountainside, and like every other part of this route, rises and falls, goes in and goes back out, with the predictable terrain; right hand turn, left hand turn, right hand turn, left hand turn. 

Lather, rinse, repeat. Endlessly.

The rocky surface was serving as a perfect reflector/amplifier of the sun's rays and as such, I felt like a potato in a bed of coals. Add to this the on the bike, off the bike nature of the trail surface and this day was growing old very quickly. My water supplies were dwindling, and although the river was tantalizingly close, it may as well have been fifty miles away, as there was no safe way to get to it from the trail, high above it. At one point, I encountered a bike resting alongside the trail--no rider in sight--which was odd, but not nearly as odd as the bike itself: it had front and rear panniers, but these were no ordinary panniers, they were water containers, like gerry-cans, surrounding the front and rear wheels. I thought for a moment about liberating some of the precious liquid out of the vessels, but thought better of it as this was not my water to take. Good thing, too, because about 100 meters up the trail I encountered the trail crew to whom the water likely did belong. They smiled and we exchanged pleasantries, but they did not offer me any water.

Dang.

The trail seemed to go on forever, a fact made more notable by the fact that I was having to walk significant portions of it due to the difficulty of the terrain. At one point, the trail descended into a dry riverbed that sloped decidedly towards the Gila. I made the decision to stash my bike and follow it to what I hoped was its logical conclusion, in order to at least cool off a bit. Stumbling through the sandy surface, I soon encountered the slow-flowing mass of primordial sludge that is the Gila river. No matter the quality, this was liquid and it was relatively cool, so I plunged my jersey, buff and legs into the muck. I was heavenly. I could feel my body temperature falling and my attitude lightening. I wouldn't dare drink this stuff, but as a means of dissipating heat, it was spectacular.

Feeling much relieved, I trudged back up the riverbed towards my awaiting bike. After riding what was likely less than a mile, I was already completely dry and over-heating again. This was not going well.

At the next opportunity, I attempted to again return to the river, but was foiled by fences and covered in cheat grass stickers and other floral hangers-on. Dejected, I returned to my bike, or at least tried to, but found that I had wandered so far up stream trying to find a break in the fence that I was now under a rocky cliff that was topped by the trail I had ridden earlier. Undaunted, I scrambled up the steep wall, not daring to look down at what was a 20-25 foot very steep slope ending in a tangle of trees and brush. I hoped that no other racer would pass by my on the trail immediately above my head as I would likely be subjected to a shower of rocky debris.

Finally reaching the trail and returning to my bike, I was regretting the time I had lost in my fruitless pursuit of water, but still feeling the need to return to the cooling effects of the river. About two miles later, after having risen away from the river again, the trail dropped to yet another dry riverbed. I hurriedly ditched my bike and stumbled down the even deeper sand than what I had encountered earlier. Once again, I was dipped into the water and feeling the healing effects of coolness.

Returning to my bike, I heard a noise up ahead of me, accompanied by a flash of dark movement. I stared in disbelief as I found myself nearly face to face with a very large, Brahma bull. This was no small, petting zoo-type of bull, but the real, rodeo-type. Thankfully, he had had his horns removed, but that was cold comfort as he had not had any of his mass removed. He was huge. Rolls of loose skin shook and bounced on his chest as he nervously turned his upper body from side to side, keeping his eyes intently fixed on me. This was the same behaviour I had seen a thousand bulls do while staring down a rodeo clown, just prior to charging them. I was pretty helpless. It was just him and me, mano-a-mano, in a dry riverbed. So, this is how it all ends, I thought to myself. How inglorious.

The trail along the Gila River

Trying to think quickly, but feeling the effects of the heat and the day's efforts, I yelled and threw my hands in the air, Yah!, Yah! Get a move on little doggie! I have always found that in a crisis, trite and cliche' movie lines seem to do the most good, but in this case, all they did was irritate this brute even more. He began trotting in tight circles, flicking his tail wildly, all the while regarding me intently and exhaling deeply. This isn't good, I said to no one in particular.

I repeated my wildly unsuccessful cowboy imitation, only this time, it worked! The beastly mass decided he had had enough and bolted to his right towards the high river bank. In what could only be described as a chaotically fluid move, he leapt onto the bank, easily four feet tall, and was gone in a flash, his tail waving back and forth.

I breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Back on my bike and on the trail, I decided that while less than ideal, the dangers off of the trail made the dangers on the trail seem relatively pedestrian.

My Picketpost Mountain

I was worried about my lack of water, but standing next to a sign at the base of a rather steep, rocky jeep trail, I noted that I only had 30 miles or so to the Picketpost trailhead, and the finish line of the 300 mile version of this race. Certainly, there will be water there, I assured myself. While the elevation on the sign map seemed a bit intimidating, the stark warning spelled out in large letters really caught my attention:

Warning: you are about to enter a very remote and inaccessible section of the Arizona Trail. There is no re-supply, or reliable water source for the next 30 miles. The remoteness of this trail also means that there is no cell phone service and emergency access is difficult and should not be relied on. You are responsible for your own safety. Please take every precaution, be prepared.

Well, that seems pretty clear. There is no way that I have enough water.

Looking up the trail after a mile or so, I noticed a large post-shaped formation sticking up from the rocky ridges that seemed endless. I had no idea what 'picketpost' mountain looked like, but that simply had to be it. It was indeed an odd-looking feature and would have been named by early settlers, I was sure of it. The best part was that it was not too terribly far away. I figured that the trail must wind around a bit to make up the 30 miles or so that I was told to expect, but this couldn't be all that tough.

After about another mile or so, I was feeling the effects of an arduous day and stopped to eat the PBJ sandwich I had been carrying for a day and a half. When I pulled it out, I realized that it was inedible. Not because it had gone bad, or was spoiled, but because I was so dehydrated I had no saliva. I tried everything I could think of, including filling my mouth with more water than I could spare to somehow make the mass of calories slide down my throat, but it was no use. Saliva isn't just wet, it also breaks food down in a way that water alone does not. I had no choice by to spit the sandwich out. I tried the same technique with a Clif bar, thinking that since it barely qualified as food, water might actually work; but no, the same result. Now I had no food and only about 30 ounces of water to tide me over for the next 28 miles or so.

The next 3 hours were an on/off bike struggle with some of the roughest terrain thus far on the AZT. Adding to the roughness of the trail, was the narrowness and the rapid onset of darkness. The air was cooling, however, and each time I sucked a tablespoon or so of water around my parched and swollen tongue, I said a little thanks for the lack of heat. At one point, the trail arrived near the base of Picketpost mountain, and carved a circuitous line around a bowl-shaped basin. I was riding in the fading daylight, watching the colors being projected onto the rock ridges and walls high above me, when something in the trail caught my eye. I stopped and squinted at the form slowly moving across the trail 12 feet or so in front of me. It was a rattlesnake; not a big one, but a rattler none the less.

Prior to starting the Tour Divide, I had been borderline terrified of running into a grizzly in the remote wilderness of Canada or Montana, but, once the race began, I viewed such an encounter as more of an annoyance that anything else. I realized that the same was occurring with this rattlesnake. I had guarded a bit of fear about just the exact situation that I now found myself in, but like a bear encounter, I found this to be merely inconvenient. The snake, however, took it a little more personal. As soon as I stopped my bike, it coiled up in the middle of the trail. The trail that I would need to pass by on.

He/she slowly moved his/her head back and forth, while flicking his/her tail for all it was worth. Message received. Now, get out of the way. This was to be a stand-off, and only one of us had time on his/her non-existent hands. I picked up a baseball-sized rock to toss in the snake's general direction. As it bounced off of the trail and then directly over the snake, I remembered why I don't play throwing sports.

A bad miss, was enough to suggest the wisdom of moving off of the trail, however, and my scaly friend stealthily moved his/her body into a bush next to the trail, leaving the business end still exposed and guarding the trail. Another bad throw and the head too, disappeared into the trailside vegetation. I cautiously passed, keeping my bike between me and certain death.

On the harrowing drive to the start line, I had asked Norb and Jared the proper protocol for wilderness snake bites, as they both had high-level training in such things. The general consensus
was to stay calm, immediately get off the bike, assess the wound (maybe it is just a 'dry bite'), remove any constrictive clothing, stay calm, mark the site with a Sharpie, if possible, scan for dizziness, nausea, a metallic taste in the mouth, stay calm, and walk to help.

Hmmmm.

Given that in either direction, I would have 25 or so, miles to walk to have any chance of finding any assistance, I decided that I would turn both of my lights on, so that I could actually see the snake that bit me just prior to dying a lonely, painful death in the middle of nowhere. Please take every precaution, be prepared.

Now I was on high alert, and for good reason. Months earlier, while touring the Frank Lloyd Wright home near Scottsdale, our guide had asked us to look out over the desert from Frank's front yard. "Everything in the desert wants to kill you," she proclaimed with a stunning lack of alarm. Her words played in my rapidly deteriorating mind for the next 4 hours.

When I started up the steep, rocky, jeep trail, I had assumed that I would pull into Picketpost about 10 PM, and then make my way to Superior, for a quick re-supply and maybe a motel room if I was feeling soft. Glancing at my watch about an hour after the encounter with the serpent, I noted that I had exactly 31 minutes to cover 18 miles. At least I think it was eighteen miles. None of my GPS units seemed to function properly nestled as they were in a deep, rocky canyon with very little sky visible. There was one star that I kept noting. It was just below the horizon each time I saw it, but unlike most stars it appeared to move across the ground. It was Norb's headlight, weakly illuminating the trail that I would traverse hours later.

From here, you can hear the freeway.....

It became very clear that the spire that I had assumed was Picketpost mountain, was decidedly not, as it was now somewhere in the darkness behind and depressingly, below me.

There is really no way for me to accurately describe the mental and physical nightmare that I went through chasing Norb's faint glow. I found most of the trail to be too hazardous to ride this time of night and in my frail mental state, so I was forced to struggle along what felt like a narrow ledge on a high-rise building above a city street, while trying to more or less occupy the same space as my loaded bike. I cannot tell you how many times I kicked the pedal with my shin, only to have a rock or a stick on the other side of the trail send it spinning to strike me again. To add to my misery, my thumb that I had injured earlier in the day, was not enjoying the role it was to play in pushing my handlebars.

At one point, I decided to ride because, danger be damned, I was sick, sick, sick of walking. I mounted my bike and soon began coasting towards one of the thousands of sharp turns indicating a drainage line between ridges. Most of these were quite eroded and nearly unrideable, but in my stupor, and in the dim light, I tried to stay in the saddle, but it was no use. Facing a rock step up that was nearly a foot tall, I clipped out of my pedal on the uphill side. As I did, just for the most fleeting of moments, I lost my balance to my left, downhill, side. The front wheel of the bike began to roll backwards as my weight shifted, now moving forward as well. I quickly turned the front wheel to the right, and regained my balance, but as I did, my headlamp swung to my left and I saw what I had nearly fallen into: a tangled mass of prickly pear cactus at least five feet on a side and an equal distance below me. What on earth would you do if you fell into that in the middle of nowhere? I asked myself. No answer provided any comfort.

I vowed then and there to walk any and all such corners.


It was now approaching midnight, and I was still either 8, 11 or 17 miles from Picketpost, depending on which GPS reading I chose to believe. Clearly, there were few satellites to be connected to from this miserable location. I did note that there was a water cache coming up in--well, it was hard to know exactly--some short distance. It was at FR4, which looked to be just ahead of me. My headlamp caught a reflector up ahead--YES! FR4! Water, here I come! Well, needless to say, while I was indeed approaching FR4, and my most reliable map--my written cue sheet--said that the water cache at FR4 was at mile 297 (Picketpost was mile 300), there was no cache to be found. At this point I began a round of cursing that would make a Navy admiral blush.

I had absolutely had it with this stupid race.

I was now completely out of water; who knew exactly where I was? I had held out hope for a water box that may not even contain water, but in addition to that, the box itself may be a no-show. Terrific.

You know why the race directors of the AZT 750 print just any old thing that pops into their heads, rather than factual information? Because they know that you are too %*&$*ing stupid to know the difference! And you know how they know you are so %*&%ing stupid?? Because you signed up for this mother&^%*ing, stupid-*&%, *&$%ed up excuse for a bike race, that's how!

You get the idea.

Surprisingly, I did find the water cache, and better yet, it did contain one remaining jug of un-opened water. A freaking miracle. I actually contemplated just filling one of my bottles, since I was so close to the finish. I mean, it is only 3 more miles! I told myself. Something inside of me, however, said drink it all. Drink every last drop. So, I filled every bottle and bladder I had and then finished the bottle off by filling my stomach.

Sweet nectar of Heaven, that was amazing. I was so relieved to be DONE with this day. I would coast on into Picketpost, bivy and after a few hours sleep, head into Superior for a re-supply and a proper breakfast. Wow. That was an epic day.

You can probably guess what happened next. Three miles became ten, then eight, then 12. There was no telling where this trail ended, but it most definitely wasn't 3 miles from the water cache. After much, much more swearing and vocalizing of my deep frustrations, I heard something that made me stop in my tracks. The sound of a diesel engine. The freeway! The freeway was close enough to hear! I had to be close now. I just had to be.

At 1:45 AM, I pulled into Picketpost, where I encountered a pile of empty water jugs. It was a good thing that I took all the water I needed two hours back, I quietly said to myself.

I slowly rode around the circular parking lot, getting my bearings and reveling in the feeling of finally being here. I noticed a bike leaned up against the Forest Service toilet building, and quickly realized that it was Norb's. I found a hidden place to lay down my sleep system and was soon staring up into the dark, nighttime sky, replaying this most amazing of days in my mind. Twenty-two and a half hours, 60 miles, thirty or so of it hiking. The fall, the heat, the terrain, the bull, the heat, the dehydration, the frustration, the swearing, the relief at finally arriving at Picketpost.

I breathed a sigh, as I lifted my feet to stretch out a bit, and as I let my right heel hit the ground, a cactus needle jabbed into it piercing through my bivy sack and my sleeping bag. It was a proper ending to the day.




More to come.....