In the end I decided to tell my allergies to go fuck themselves, and had a good weekend.

Yesterday was 3+ hours riding in Flag. We’ve got great riding all over town, and enormous potential for more. But the granite/volcanic/p-pine/aspen littoral is one of my favorites anywhere, and in Flag in particular. Riding up Shultz told me that there was too much snow and mud left over from a few days ago for the usuals like Jedi, Ricochet, and Little Bear to be in good riding shape (north facing and/or too technical), so I ambled. Eventually finding myself dragging my rear wheel up the soft fire road towards the wilderness boundary. The turnoff towards Supermoto looked good, so I went. Riding steep rock gardens in the snow is fun when you don’t crash.

Supermoto, as I was introduced to it last summer by the Phoenix 6″ and gravity-dropper crowd, was a mile long fall line rock garden, totally relentless. I had managed to hang off the front all day until then, and got summarily dropped. Challenging and “technical” or not, the trail was the result of extensive erosion of a very old logging road, and not sustainable. It got rerouted last fall, despite the protests of those not wanting to set the mountain dumbed down. Ironically, it’s not on any published map.

I don’t know if I road the full reroute or not, but what I did was totally fantastic. I’ll need to find it again when the nastiest bits are dry, and thus doable (for me). I will add that the Blackspire Ring God proved itself on the rocks and logpiles. Mandatory SS gear for Elden.

And then I found more new (to me and my map) trails. Lots of logging going on above the Fort Valley area, and some super new singletrack has been cut in recently. Positively buff and flowy by AZ standards, trails to make me remember fondly places like Sugar Bottom outside Iowa City, and the Denman’s loop in the middle of Des Moines.

So I got muddy, and then I got psyched. I took a good long while for the legs to wake up, but in the end life was very good.

Then today, Fool’s Day, was Foolio Fest. As predicted, I was the lone fool for the Hance-Grandview loop, and set off at 930 in good spirits. I packed 6 liters of fluids, and plenty of food. I told M 5-7 hours in my optimism. But today was a day to live up to it’s name.

I made the river in 2:15, feeling happy. I got to watch some rafters run Hance, which looked soporific from shore. Rising up to the Tonto proper is not easy, but went fine. Then my stomach began hardening. In my apathy, I added a liter of gatorade to the liter or so of Cytomax already in my dromedary, and then topped with water. It made for an evil mix. My gut felt awful, I needed water, but drinking made it worse. I limped through the next 5 miles, taking a couple shade breaks, slowing the pace to prevent further issues, and feeling negligent. Lesson learned: lemon-lime and Cran-grapefruit do not get along.

Eventually I made Hance Canyon, notable as it’s one of the few canyons which does not create the rapid of the same name. I dumped my evil juice and tanked on creek water, scooping it straight with my hands at first. I was not worried about the long term. Soon I was able to eat again, fortunate for the long grind up and out. The final tally was 6:45. Pretty damn good for 21 miles, 5.1k down, 5.5k up, and a route most backpack in three days. Still, better planning would have cut off an hour.

Foolish.

I did manage to appreciate the Cottonwoods, shocking green and new, and notice the few prodigal Claret Cup Cacti already in bloom. A nice mirror to melting snow in the pines.

Rule for life: have at least 8k of relief within two hours of home. Preferably closer.