It's that time of year again - Mountain Man adventures with my friend, Jason. I have been posting short blogs here since the first adventure to Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in WV back in 2015. Since then, we've done these every year in the October/November time frame with only one exception. I apparently didn't blog anything last year, but we did some exploring here in NM.
Every year, we do something a bit different - Dolly Sods was a two night backpacking loop; New York (Escarpment Trail) was a three night straight through, with cars parked at opposite ends; Kentucky was the Red River Gorge where we introduced some car camping with some longer day hikes; North Carolina was a mix of car camping and backpacking; COVID had us looking for someplace closer to home which we found in Pennsylvania. This year, the big change was we would both be camping off of our motorcycles. Since we would be camping in bear country, we opted for no overnight food and included a couple of hotels for showers and such.
We started close to home (for me) in the Truth or Consequences area. While I was counting on the desert to do desert things not in the monsoon season, I was to be bitterly disappointed. It rained basically the whole time!
We did a short day ride in and out of the rain on our first day, but managed to snag some dry firewood at a gas station/grocery store not far from the campground and enjoyed a nice fire before the rains set in (again).
We watched the weather and saw that it was going to keep raining forever (not an exaggeration at this point!) in NM, so we abandoned/modified our plans and decided to head west into Arizona a day early. We again played hide and go seek with the rain on the way, but it did eventually clear.
You can see from the video, below, that there was more than a little bit of rain. We encountered four of these flooded roads in NM in the final 10-12 miles before the AZ state line. None had more than a couple of inches of water (you could see the center line all the way through the water across the entire water "hazard"), so we giggled like a couple of school kids and rode through them all multiple times. Fun!
We drove through two big mining operations that day, but the one in Arizona was just staggering. We made it through that and found a free campground in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest (Granville campground) which we had to ourselves for an hour, then had another person drive in. Thankfully, they were quiet and set up a long way from us - we basically had the place to ourselves.
We enjoyed a fire there, but a passing rainstorm had us duck for cover before the wood completely burned out - so it was an early night. We got up the next day and packed our wet gear, knowing we were headed to the desert of southeast Utah - which was practically guaranteed to be dry. We rode the amazing Coronado Trail (Hwy 191) to Alpine. Along the way we rode into drizzle and fog, along with some crazy cold temps - but the ride was fantastic!
Next up - Utah.
Cheers,
Marc
No comments:
Post a Comment