A couple of weekends ago, Doug (Pacman), Jeremy, (Spec-Ed) and I headed out to AZ for some new dirt. The plan was to break up the driving by hitting Prescott on Friday, then continue on to Sedona to ride Saturday and Sunday. Sean (GP_Pilot) also joined us but missed out on all of the fun in the car by meeting us in Preskit.
We rolled out of SD at 4:00 AM Friday morning, and were in Preskit by 10:15. I had planned the ride for the day and chose to do the Lynx Lake Loop Trail. We started at the main trailhead off Walker Rd and the three of us did a quick recon trip out to the Lynx Creek Pueblo ruins while we waited for Sean to arrive. The ruins were marked by an info marker and were best viewed from a platform constructed just off the 301 trail.
They were really only a pile of rocks today, but apparently once marked the home of 20-30 Native Americans.
The ruins were a little anticlimactic, and once Sean joined us we were on our way. We were following a map I found in Cosmic Ray’s MTB guide, which turned out to be a little out of date. For the first several miles of the southbound part of the loop we followed the 305 Trail as it meandered through pine and oak trees that lined the lake.
Many of the trees were still in the process of changing colors, which added to the scenery.
Jeremy killed it all weekend on his hardtail 1X9:
While Doug enjoyed the fruits of his new blingy Niner:
Though the trail was near the lake, we only saw water once, and that was on a small detour.
The trail was mildly technical with only a few rocky sections and moderate climbs. Sean did manage to find one feature that I think all of cleaned:
Doug also cleaned this rocky portion:
I enjoyed myself thoroughly:
Sean had no problem with the moderate climbs on the way out the 305 Trail. Mush be all of the extra sleep he got that morning:
The 305 trail meandered for about 8 miles until we began the second part of the loop that started bringing us back toward the trailhead. At this point of the ride we found ourselves doing some significant route finding despite the assistance of Cosmic Ray’s and Dale Wiggins’ maps. In the past I think there were only a couple of main trails on the west side of Walker Rd, but over the years motos and hikers have created a significant number of offshoot trails and false turns that made it very hard to stay on our intended route. Thanks to Sean’s navigation skills and my boundless enthusiasm, we stayed positive and actually rode the route mostly as intended.
There were a couple of memorable moments of the second half of the loop, including a bonus trip up to a fascinating water tower:
And a brief intermission to fix Doug’s torn sidewall:
Once we firmly got our bearings we had an uneventful ride back to the trailhead. The ride ended up longer (16 miles, just over 4 hours) than I had anticipated, but was enjoyable overall. This is not what I would call a “destination ride,” however. It bore more than a passing resemblance to BLT, and if given the choice again I would probably have ridden a different trail in Preskit to kick off our trip. But we logged some fun miles and had a decent break-in ride for the weekend.
Post-ride dinner and refreshments were at the Prescott Brewing Company, where Sean and I enjoyed their amazing chocolate porter called “Achocolypse.” Tremendous.
After dinner we headed up the freeway a bit toward Sedona, where we camped for the night. Day two of the AZ Weekend is coming in a different post.
*Several pictures in this report courtesy of Sean.
Everytrail link here: http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=878379
GTC link here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/56035765
