Trekking Adventures

So you love your mama.  Don’t you?  It was going to be my mom’s 80th birthday.  The whole family was planning on getting together.  Now some of you know this and some don’t, my mom and dad, I think he had something to do with it, had 11 children.  So this is going to be a big deal.  But wait let me regress, I decide that for my mother’s birthday gift, that I was going to give to her early, was to be a trike.  You know the bad ass trike that really cool people ride around on.  Twenty inch wheels and heck even a bell.  I get it in, put it together put on a bell and deliver it to the folks.  I had given my dad a bike some years ago and he still rides it.  I know, I know, come on John get on with the story.  So she gets into riding it for fun and exercise.  Cool.  The party comes and she actuially rides her trike up to the party at the community center.  “Right on mom.”  But there is a problem with the tires and rims.  The tire keeps slipping off the rims, so they say.  Like a good little son I go over one evening to take a look.  I spend some time and get it right.  The next day they were going to go out for a ride.  So, that next evening I give them a call to ask how the trike performed.  My dad answers the phone.  I ask him how the ride went.  My dad responds, “Oh, I guess you have not heard.”  “No,” I answer.  My dad, “we are at the hospital.”  To make a long story short, my dad says that my mom got out of control on the trike, hit a curb and crashed.  Great, I take off for the hospital.  And, as you will be able to see from the picture below, well, my mom got pretty banged up.  I walk into her room in the mergency room, there she lay, “Oh my god mom what the hell happened?”  To say the least it was kinda crazy to see your mom who is eighty to have the same crazy crashs that I have had but from riding a trike.

Sorry for the long story.  But as you can see it was kinda crazy.  She is actaully fine and doing very well.  Heck better than most a fourth her age. 

“Rock on mom”

About a week ago I had the opportunity to escort a guest from the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain resort on a mountain bike adventure to a local riding area called Willow Springs near Oracle Az.
This is an area that plays host to an annual bike race called the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo. As the name implies, this a 24 hour race. Some people will ride for 24 hours as a solo competitor and others will be part of a team. Yes, the solo riders ride the entire 24 hours.These are the true competitors. Others are there for the fun. For this is more than merely a mountain bike race. This is an event. This event turns a normally quiet,dry patch of desert, into a pulsating miniature town of 5000 citizens. The town is known as 24 hour town. Equipped with eateries, showers, shops, unofficial bars and even its own radio station. The actual ride consists of 18 miles of single track. Built by mountain bikers for mountain bikers.
My guest and I were riding the whole track. The ride had gone great. Lots of hard fast flowy single track stretching for miles through the open desert. One of my favorite aspects of this ride is the speed you can reach while weaving your way through and around the outstretched claws of jumping cholla cactus. One brush against these spinney buggers leaves them clinging to your clothes or worse, skin. The needles of these cactus are barbed so the extraction is sometimes more painful than insertion. But fear not (unless you land in one) small segment can be removed with a strong comb or a couple of sticks.
Our ride had gone fine though, without any unwanted thorny passengers. The only unusual occurance happened when we approached my truck to pack up and head home. I had followed my guest to the truck and we both dismounted our bikes when Inoticed he was standing about 5 feet from a 3 foot western diamondback rattle snake (crotalus atrox). So not to startle him I casually said be careful of the rattlesnake right there. I believe he thought I was joking until he turned and saw this little fella.

angry little snake

Normally I would never bother a snake I came across in the wild.  Although I do feel that rattlesnakes present us with an opportunity to observe, at a relatively close but still very safe distance. No other wild animal, especially one that garners so much fear, will allow you to view it from the distance you can observe a rattlesnake. You would never dream of trying to view a mountain lion or a bear from 15 feet away, but 15 -20 feet is a safe distance for a rattlesnake. That being said this critter was too close for comfort and we needed to pack up and head home. I first attempted to “shew” the snake with a stick off into the desert. My little friend decided to proceed directly under my vehicle behind the tire. Time for a longer stick. Once one was found I was able to scoop the snake away from the truck at witch time I snapped this photo. This is just a little reminder to those that venture outside this time of year. You never need to be afraid out there just be aware. You never know when you might run across one of our crabby desert critters.

Rick Gray, Southwest Trekking Guide