it narrows down to singletrack. Not a bad route for climbing slowly up the hillside.
More Lower Raptor Hill Trail:
Cottonwood, AZ - Cycling in Dead Horse Ranch State Park
In the morning I got up maybe around
6 am and started up the trail. Here we're in the Miocene basin fill
freshwater limestones.
Here's a map of the trails I stole from the Arizona State Parks website.
This is going up the Lower Raptor
Hill Trail. It's labeled as doubletrack. However in places,
it narrows down to singletrack. Not a bad route for climbing slowly up the hillside.
More Lower Raptor Hill Trail:
Here's a view of Jerome, across the
Verde Valley:
Look at the exposure of Miocene basin
fill:
After climbing up on the doubletrack, I got to follow
the awesome singletrack on the Thumper Trail. Woo Hoo!
Ya gotta know you're not in the east when you find cattleguards for bikes at
the fencelines! What an awesome TTF!
The way down the big hill was quite
fun. There were small drop-offs like this one of about a foot along the way.
Nothing the ole Squoil couldn't manage and enjoy at the same time!
We're in Arizona, baby! That means
it's ocotillo country. Lucky for me, this one was blooming:
Here's a closer view:
Closer yet:
Even closer:
Heck, there are more octoillos! Right
alongside some sweet singletrack.
Where the Thumper Trail joins the
Lime Kiln Trail? I think...
My ride was shorter than I wanted;
too bad because was really nice! Next I drove up to Jerome, an old mining town.
I looked through the shops, then headed to Prescott. I visited an art fair in
town, then went to Granite Basin.
I met a fellow in the parking lot
who gave me direction to "the best" trail. He was right, it was a
fun downhill, with a few
low whoops on it. The basin is quite high, so I was puffing on the uphills,
but overall it was a great place to ride.
On my way out of the recreation area,
I was flagged down from a woman who didn't have cell phone reception.
She was visiting from Kansas to a family get together. She'd been dropped off
for a hike and was supposed to
phone her family for a pickup. But with no cell reception, she was stuck. So
I cleared out the mess of my
passenger seat and took her out to the highway and dropped her off. She had
reception there. Her family owned
the candy business that sells to Hallmark stores.
Next Photo Stop: Saguaros on the road to Bagdad
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