Craving an endless smorgasbord of rock in your MTB diet? Wanting to utilize full suspension travel on that “all mountain” bike you bought? Then pass up Moab, Gooseberry, Fruita and instead pull up the stakes and move to the neighboring state…presuming you can deal with the triple digit temps 8 months out of the year. But it’s only a dry heat. For those who can’t, Phoenix is just 350 miles to the east and is a perfect weekend get-away this time of year.

Over 3 days, we hit up old familiar favorites and threw in some lesser known legends within the South and White Tank Mountains. Four Phoenix virgins joined the fray, naive of what they got themselves into other than a promise of an endless buffet of chuck.

Day 1 – South Mountain
Since riding technical rock isn’t the de rigueur in San Diego, Javalina acts as a good warm up.



The recent rains cast a green sheen to the desert.





Then Javalina abruptly spits you out onto Mormon Loop



Mormon ups the technical climbing ante





National adds more climbing and technical features







Someone else will have to add the Waterfall pics. Small rock hucking.



Robo practices levitating



The finale was a descent on Holbert



Starts out innocently enough





And then starts throwing it at you.



Unfortunately Babak was the first to succumb to OTB going into this section and injure his hand for the weekend.





Remaining trail below with Phoenix backdrop.



Robo conquers this gauntlet







Gman easily masters this section



Evdog would have you believe his Maxxis tire lost grip at this point,



but he clearly chose the wrong line and worships some rock.



Chunck doesn’t let up until the very end



Technical difficulty of Holbert was a surprise even to the veterans and was definitely a step above Geronimo descent from last year. Everyone was beat for the day with only 16.1 mi.



Continued: Phoenix Chunktacular Goodness – Day 2

Thanks for the write up. A lot of that looked familiar from last year, but Holbert looked particularly gnarly. Yikes.

Thanks for another good TR. Nice pictures, especially the sequence shot of Robo.

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Thanks for the TR! I need to get back to South Mountain soon.

Evan, new bike?

What I'm wondering is why are there only like two pictures of Evan? I know he was riding all this stuff.

Wow. All I can say is jesus that looks hard and fun.. (that's what she said). Can't wait to see day 2.

Where do you buy cactus helmets

Incredible pics Sean. Super fun trip. Good chunk out there that you really had to keep your eye on.

Forming an orderly line on Javalina.




Kreechan disappears into the bush. Stunning scenery.




Holy carp! Is Evan shrinking even smaller or are these big ass cacti?




National Trail has some great intermittent features to ride, walk or fall down on.




GP_pilot rolls down lower Waterfall on National Trail. This angle makes it look easy, but this was a tricky move. He and Evan rode the middle "spine" section. Apparently the leftmost line has completely fallen away since Sean was last here. I wasn't feeling it, and luckily I had a cold and could say "Sorry, I have a headache - not today."

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Holbert was my favorite trail of the trip. Absolutely riveting fun descent, and all the sections are doable if you dare.

Gman falls to his knees at the end in relief, just thankful for level ground at last.




Kickin' it after the Holbert descent, spinning tales of courage, boldness and injury in battle. Babek would sit out the next two days of riding due to a badly bruised hand that we had temporarily believed might be broken. Luckily it improved, but not enough to do more than read some books and do some hikes around the RV while we rode. And not a complaint from the guy!

Sweet pics Rob! I know I don't have to say it but I'm itching to ride here now more than ever.

Great trip and very good TR Sean. Not many pics I can contribute - I had my hands full keeping up with a level of chunk that was far beyond my comfort zone. But I can help for this one:


Sean leaving the spine in the waterfall section


Evan also rode this one and made it look easy.


...and did a repeat for a differnt angle pic

I wanted to thank all the guys on this trip for making my first visit to Phoenix so memorable!! As you can tell from the pictures, conditions were ideal and the landscape was beautiful. GP_Pilot, Robo, kreechan, evdog, Gman and Brent were all first class trip mates. Too bad I hurt my hand & couldn't ride Day2&3; but it was a great weekend in the desert, no doubt!!

Special Shout-Out goes to GP_Pilot for putting together this trip & taking care of the guys so well with good drink and awesome gruel.

At the same time, I want to take this time to say goodbye. It's been too short; but I'm heading off to St.Louis for a new job. I will keep in touch with Dirttreaders & hope to ride with you guys again soon. Who knows, I may make my way back to San Diego some day.

All the best,
Babak

Sunrise on our first day in the desert.
Just a few pics.


What an incredible weekend! Thanks for everything Sean.

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I was able to break away for the weekend and tag along for this trip. The rv was full up, so I drove myself. Making good time, I was at the first nights campsite and sleeping by 1030. It was dead quiet so I was able to get a great night sleep, important as I was still fighting off a nasty cold. The boys arrived a few hours later but didn't see me pulled off the road and drove past. I'd meet up with them at the trailhead in the morning.

Early light & mist


Sunrise


I got to the trailhead at the suggested 10am but the others were still checking in at the campground. So I rode a quick loop up Beverly Canyon and Ridgeline to the bottom of Mormon loop, then back down Javelina. By the time I got back the group was almost ready to go. I was happy for the warmup as I had left the heckler at home in favor of the vp free. Part because I wanted to get some more time on the 'free, and part because I didn't feel like bleeding the Codes again on the heckler.

After a few mins we were off...Gman on the climb


Climbing....


I remember this from last yr. The trail starts with a few tech moves on Javelina, then gets harder and harder the higher you go.


Once on National the real fun begins


Lots of features to test you


Big cactus


The hills were lush and green


A fun feature to play on, everyone took a turn


Rob goes down...


Rob goes up...


Rob goes down...


Rob goes up...


Moving on, more rock to play on


GP_pilot would have you believe his kendas lost grip at this point, but he clearly just chose the wrong line


These guys were definitely not having as much fun as we were


We took a little detour past Holbert. Lots of tough moves both directions


The top of Holbert was just pure, sweet flow






Quite a contrast to the gnar once we crossed the road and the trail really started to drop


Kreechan follows GP_pilot


Approaching a level, but still tough, corner


Gman was killing it today


Lots of fun chunk


The exit of this section got everyone...


All in all a great first day. The vp free turned out to be a surprisingly good climber. Not in long grinds, it was ok on those, but it was excellent for powering over short steep technical moves.

The original plan was to climb back up and score another descent but the late start and fatigue conspired against us, and we opted instead to spin back to the parking lot.

Robo clones! God help us!

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