Occasional Other Matters: Two Legged Adventure (Mount Wrightson)

If not for my inability to ride after dark, this day most definitely would have included my motorcycle. Alas a day in late fall is not long enough to comfortably confine all these activities to the daylight hours.

The activities, in order of appearance:

Drive to Madera Canyon, begrudgingly in the car.  Prior moto trip to the canyon discussed here.

Climb Mount Wrightson, the steep way up, the long way down.  (I know, I know...  "Stop.  Think.  There must be a harder way.")
Stats:
Ascend Old Baldy Trail - 5.4 miles to the top, over 4000 ft elevation gain.  Hear me roar, I made it to the peak in 2 hours, 45 minutes!
Descend Super Trail - 8.2 miles back to the trail head.  The prettier of the two trails, in my opinion.  Solve geocache puzzle at Josphine's Saddle.

Find actual geocache.

Drive home.  Yep, it got dark before I got home.  Good call on taking the car. 

Photographic evidence:


Bellows spring was frozen.

A teeny tiny perfect autumn leaf as opposed to the gigantic enormous perfect fall leaf I'm holding in this post.

My spaghetti squash sun-dried tomato herb muffin (savory, not sweet) contemplates the view at Baldy Saddle.  Who says you can't put spaghetti squash in muffins or bread?  If you can use zucchini, why not?  (Recipes still under development, but I'm getting darn close...)

Arrival at the summit!  The frozen spring surely tipped you off:  It's cold!  I wore leggings, hiking pants, silk underlayer, turtle neck, "soft shell" jacket, gloves and hat, and didn't find myself wanting to remove any layers at any time.  I even wore my boots, which I never do.  I'm a confirmed Teva hiker, regardless of terrain, since boots invariably leave my toes all bruised.  Turns out this latest pair of boots is no exception.  Maybe some day I'll get hiking boots that fit correctly, but I'm not into buying pair after pair, only to find out these too don't suit my strange (narrow at the heel, wide at the ball) feet.  I can ride in them without a problem, I just can't hike in them.

The summit offered gorgeous vistas in each direction, and none of my pictures really captured them.  Here's a photo from the top anyway.

Making my way back down via the Super Trail.

A commemorative sign at Josphine's saddle.  On the date shown (purely by coincidence I was hiking on the anniversary of the tragedy), a boy scout troop camping and hiking in the area was caught in a freak snowstorm that dumped several feet of snow in the Santa Ritas.  Three boys died.  No one hikes Mt. Wrightson without checking the weather anymore.  This sign is one of five I needed to locate to solve a puzzle that would yield the coordinates of the geocache I was hunting.

A pretty spot not too far from my geocache find.  (The geocache itself was not on the trail, but further down Madera Canyon.)

 

The moon rises over the Santa Ritas.  Good night moon.  Good night mountains.  How lucky I was to have this day!

Not In California (Staycation Expedition No. 2)

So, I'm still not in California. But in keeping with my plan to visit nearby places I haven't yet seen, Staycation Expedition No. 2 was a geocaching ride to Organ Pipe National Monument, near Ajo, AZ (Round trip probably 270 miles.)

Again, I had to choose two of the three: water, rainsuit, lunch. I made lunch walk the plank and opted to forage for it along my way. I SHOULD have stopped for lunch at the Desert Rain Cafe, in Sells, AZ, to enjoy ingredients traditional to the Tohono O'odham people, such as cholla buds, mesquite beans, and saguaro fruit. But I guess having a new Ducati does something to your brain. I completely forgot that interesting eating opportunity. I'll definitely let you know about it next time I run up Kitt Peak.

Anyway, we've talked about this before. All hail the gas station hot dog!



And shouldn't every gas station in the middle of the desert have a casino? I'm a lazy gambler. Once I found out I had to buy tokens rather than getting to feed my money directly into the machine, I abandoned that idea. It's just as well. Little did I know, I was going to need my money soon enough.



Monsoon rains made the desert green and lush in areas.



Other areas, even just a few tenths of a mile away.... not so much.



Here's a nice view.




I should know, because I got to enjoy it for quite some time. This is exactly where my (practically) brand new, showroom spotless Ducati Monster 696 with only 1425 miles on the odometer sputtered to a stop. As in, not going anywhere. At. All. And, while AAA would keep me on hold long enough to drain my cell phone battery, they would NOT dispatch help, thanks to a glitch in my membership status. I stuck out my thumb, and hoped for the best.

It's always fun to make new friends while out riding.


When I emailed the above picture, and the one that follows to a friend (the very one who was instrumental in my acquisition of this bike - thank you, DN!!), with no explanation save the title "My Ride Today," he thought I had lost my license and the Ducati was being impounded. Sheesh!



Diagnosis: a seized exhaust valve in the horizontal cylinder. That's mechanic-ese for "Really, REALLY bad." And "Expe -eh -eh -ehn-SIVE!"

Good thing the repair is on Ducati's dime. I had three days left to the warranty!!

Chocolate cache in Bisbee, AZ

This month I've taken two geocaching rides to Bisbee, AZ. I love the ride, I love the little town, and the hunt for a geocache gives my ride a "purpose," (as if I need one.) Between my limited budget of late, and a freezer bursting with goodness, I've taken to packing a lunch, and treating myself to something simple, like a darned good espresso from the Bisbee Coffee Company. A couple of weeks ago I found a particularly interesting cache by following this trail of photographic clues. I felt very clever indeed.


A few days ago I found a cache hidden somewhere up here (with the aid of a GPS enabled iPhone and sturdy boots):



Here's the view from the cache site. Lovely!



Bisbee is a popular place, so parking is always a little tricky. I usually park a bit off the beaten path and enjoy the walk. On this last trip, my parking strategy proved worthwhile. Oh happy day! - I found myself directly across the street from micro-chocolatier Gordon Terpening's shop, Chocolate (accent on the a, I've no idea how to do that from this blog interface.) At this lovely boutique, they not only hand make stunningly beautiful and tasty bonbons, but they first make the chocolate itself. By that, I mean they import cacao beans from around the world, and then roast, grind and conch them (a full 60 hours, thank you very much) right in their tiny workroom.

Chocolate, in its original form:

I got to see and taste the cacao nibs themselves, along with dark chocolates made from different varietals from around the world. My favorite? Definitely the Madagascar West African blend. I also had a nice little espresso cup taster of their hot chocolate. Doubting that a wide selection of low melting point treats would survive the trip in my sun heated top case, I had to make my small purchase wisely. The pressure! I opted for an orange chiltipin ganache filled confection to start my day and a dark chocolate rosemary lime treat to end it. Excellent!

Once the goods in my freezer run out, I'm checking out Cafe Roka, also in Bisbee, which I'm told should not be missed.

Bisbee is a town of artists. You can see funky artwork like this on practically every street corner.

A Happy Rider!

Geocache Update

It's day two of my Geocache career and I just learned that part of the object of the game is stealth. So two thumbs down to me for sharing my purpose with the helpful passerby yesterday. The stealth angle in an urban cache hunt can be tricky! There are a good 15 or more caches to be found within a few minutes walk from my house (one practically across the street). Walking the dog has become a brand new game! We found one last night, so clever and so tiny I thought part of it was missing. I went for another today, whilst running an errand. Its name, "Penguins in Sonora," gives it away (both location and contents), if you know downtown Tucson. No map or GPS unit required by me for this one, but the crowded site makes it nearly impossible to retrieve. I had hoped the rain (yes, it's raining today!) would help me search away in a secretive fashion, but it made things more difficult. I'll have to postpone this particular find for later.

A New Kind of Mission!

Pre-flight check list: Tires - check, controls - check, lights - check, oil - oopsy, better top that off.

I'm on a new kind mission. My first ever motorcycling-geocache hunt! My task was to locate an object using GPS coordinates. There are almost one million little trinkets, logbooks, and thing-a-ma-bobs hidden world wide, and using a GPS device and the information on Geocaching.com you too can hunt them down.

Ipod - check (thank you, Sierras Lady whom I met in my previous post), electric vest - check. Maps and GPS device - check. I am cleared for takeoff!

Off I headed, past the San Xavier Mission, down a nearby portion of the 1200 mile Juan Bautista de Anza Autoroute, past the pecan trees I wrote about in September, through AZ Wine country (Yes, we have one! It's beautiful! But probably best enjoyed on moto with the aid of a spittoon), across a gravel portion of road due to construction (another awkward moto situation that fills me with inappropriate amounts of fear), past the funny "Canelo Cowboy Church", through the Ft. Huachuca back checkpoint (which looks like what I imagine a border checkpoint in eastern Hungary circa 1965 might look like), into Sierra Vista where, my heart swelling with gratitude, I came upon a...

gas station and ladies room. Or so I thought. The gas station attendant must have been upset that I only bought three gallons of gas (Hah!), because she wouldn't let me use the ladies room. Sheesh.

After THAT was finally taken care of, I shoveled in a few mouthfuls of the granola I made last night, resuscitated my finicky iPod (I guess miracles in regards to electronics are only temporary) and set off again...

along the elusive Charleston road I could not locate three days ago, through the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, into Tombstone, AZ, home of the actual OK Corral (where I once arrived last year the very moment the shoot out re-enactment began in the street), across rolling grassy plains, studded with live oak trees and mountains in every direction, through grazing land, where the pastured lamb, beef and buffalo from my CSA are humanely raised, past the quaint old town section of Bisbee, AZ (my dear sweet addled-brained dog's eponym, let him R.I.P.), alongside some of the richest copper mines in history (my dog had coppery colored spots, thus the name) and finally to (catching my breath then, and now!):





the Bisbee Breakfast Club. (The moto in the pic isn't mine, but what's not to like about a vintage Triumph?) Phew! What a ride! 150 miles, not one of them on the freeway, and I AM HUNGRY! The culinary portion of my "Eating of Two Wheels" is proving to be more difficult than I imagined, given the fact that I can not take off 6 months and travel to all the places I KNOW are culinary gold mines. So I need to find things more in range. A bit of guidance helps. I found a good review for this little diner on eGullet.org, a web site for food fanatics, so I thought it would be a good place to start. This place was full of motorcyclists, waitstaff included. It's always fun to swap stories, and bikers know where to eat (kind of like truckers in France) so I was hopeful. I ordered the Chorizo Ranchero, as recommended by one waiter, and it was quite good. Not knock-your-socks-off make it to the top 10 meals of my life good, but fresh, tasty and well presented. I'd do it again. But given that I have very strict rules about riding at night (the rule being that I don't. Ever.), I had to eat a bit faster than I would have liked - I still had a geocache to find! Saying farewell to my new moto-friends, and receiving the standard moto-blessings ("Keep the shiny side up!") I headed back into old town Bisbee to begin the hunt.

Imagine here
pictures of
quirky wild west buildings
built into the steep hillsides
of the Mule Mountains.
Funky shops,
artwork,
cafes,
theaters,
antiques,
narrow winding streets...
All that stuff which,
in my hurry,
I didn't photograph.
I wish I had.
Next time.

Armed with a borrowed and antiquated (probably older than my 1999 moto) GPS unit and its hefty instruction manual, a map, and the unrestrained glee more often exhibited by my three year old niece when she is twirling and swirling across her imaginary dance floor than by an adult, I took to the trail. My absolute latest departure time was 3pm, to ensure my arrival home before dark. I had less than an hour to find this thing, whatever it was. My geocaching.org map gave me an approximate location. I knew, at the very least, where to park. A-wandering I went, following the GPS unit the way one might follow a divining rod. I found my coordinates, but... NOW what? I'm looking for a small vial hidden... SOMEWHERE. GPS units do have a margin of error. Not much, but enough to have left me crawling around the steep back side of a retaining wall wondering if my prey was tucked into the small loose rocks below it. Time was running out. I better check the encrypted "hint" that was on my print out. Damn! I didn't print the decoder key to unscramble the hint. A good friend gave me some technical support via phone and I had my hint. Hmmm. "Down low. Behind, but between." Thanks for NOTHING. A passerby stopped - "Did you lose something?" I explained my adventure and he joined me in the hunt. Eureka! Tucked down low, behind and into the curve of a metal sign post, in the small space between the signpost and wall I found it! A small plastic vial containing a paper to sign and date and the obligatory trinket, in this case, a tiny perfect sea shell, smaller than the beans on my plate T the Bisbee Breakfast Club. I was over the moon! Mission Accomplished!


I rode home during that magic time of day where the light seems to come, not from the warm bath of the afternoon sun, but from some life force glow of mother earth herself.


Here's a map showing the territory I covered today.