Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Black Canyon Trail, Arizona
January 21, 2012

Yesterday was my last free Friday for quite some time and the winter rains were finally arriving in northern California. So I decided to take a quick trip to ride the Black Canyon Trail, north of Phoenix. Going south from the Black Canyon trailhead is great, but I wanted to explore the trail to the north. I wanted to burn as much of the 10 hours of daylight as possible, so I planned on heading north for 4-5 hours, turning around and returning. After about a mile the trail goes down into a steep river valley, which looked like it would be very difficult to climb back out of. Once on the other side of the river the trail became quite difficult, fairly rugged, technical, and with more exposure. I was not enjoying myself and, despite taking two Codeine tablets, the knees were really hurting just one hour into the ride. After about 4.5 miles I reached for my camera and discovered I'd left it on the trail a ways back when I took a map out of my pack. This was a great excuse to go back and head south on the section I had previously ridden. Surprisingly, the climb out of the river valley was much easier than I anticipated. I am obviously not good at judging heights because the elevation profile indicates this valley was nothing compared to other parts of the trail.

At the intersection of the southern trail I took another Codeine tablet and headed out. This trail is still pretty tough, but at least I knew what to expect. By about four hours I was feeling pretty good and at five hours I ran into Table Mesa Road, much farther than I'd ever gone before. I did not have a map nor GPS track so I did not know which way to go. So I turned around and headed back. I skipped the Little Pan loop. It is mostly an ugly fire road and not as scenic, nor as difficult as returning the way I came. For much of the ride it was overcast and I tried to refrain from stopping too much for photos. But on the way back the sun came out and I got some great light. So I took quite a bit longer to get back. My technical skills are really disappointing and they really slowed me down. But I feel a lot better knowing I can do nine hours of riding on such a rugged trail.

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