Today we rode from a dispersed campsite 12km after Oracle to another dispersed campsite in the Pina Mountains on our way to Globe. We, again, had a hot day, I think even hotter than the previous days, and with less wind because of the mountains. The road surface varied between excellent gravel, paved, bad gravel, and riverbed.
Riding statistics: on Tuesday May 14, 2024, the 6th day on the Western Wildlands Route route, it took 11:02h (07:41h moving time), between 07:01 and 18:04, to cover 110 km (68 miles), including 1335 m (4380 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14 km/h (9 mph). During today's ride the average temperature was 36 °C (102 °F) with a minimum of 16 °C (62 °F) and a maximum of 46 °C (122 °F).
Totals: So far, it took 1 days, 20 hours, 13 minutes and 40 seconds of cycling time to cover 626 km (389 miles), including 7141 m (23430 ft) elevation gain, with an average speed of 14.5 km/h (9 mph).
A little after 5am we got out of our tents. The sun was already rising. We had a wonderful campsite and I really liked it. I heard quite some different animals, of which cows are the most common, and the coyotes a bit spedi. You hear them especially during sunset and during sunrise. it was again very peaceful and quiet. I guess only 5 cars passed by during the evening, and this morning only a schoolbus, yes a schoolbus. Probably picking up and enfant on the nearby farm (which still took 30 minutes to pass when cycling from the beginning of the sign. The excellent gravel road of yesterday evening continued. A smooth surface, very wide, and after some initial small climbs, a multi-multi-kilometer (about 20km) downhill. The only things to watch out for we’re a couple of patches of loose sand (not that many) and sunbathing snakes. LOL. In the early morning some of them lay in the middle of the (across). The first seems a branch at first, until I realized it was a snake. I could avoid overriding it and avoiding the head. It layed stretched out, so I assumed jumping up was difficult anyway. I spotted several different snakes, not sure which ones because I saw them all on the downhill and did not bother to cycle back up to take a photo. As soon as I have some time.I will lookup the type of snakes.
After the long downhill we ended up a very quit paved road that took is into the town of Winkelman. It exists only because of a copper mine. When we rode into the small town, it looked like a ghost town. At the gas station I asked the lady at the counter if the whole city is depending on the mining activities, it is. First, she said it was an old area where we entered the town, but soon she admitted the town is getting smaller and smaller. We saw many abandoned properties. Besides stopping at the gas station for cold drinks and snacks, we also stopped by at the local general store. Amazing to see such a store, with a specific offering of products. Good enough for our dinner, but also special to see the products needed by the local town people, despite it’s limited stock.
After leaving Winkelman we got on a paved road again, this time a little more busy, but overall a good shoulder. After 20km we had to make the decision to continue the paved road, which is an alternate because there was a large fire in 2021. I expected that we already could use the original route again (after checking US Forest Services online), although it will take much longer.
That turned out to be true, not only the distance is quite a bit longer, the road surfaces are difficult most of the times. In the late afternoon we had a break at a possible river stream. Too bad, no water. But that was to be expected. We took a break anyway. There was a through were the animals could drink. Clear water, but green olants, and many small animals. It did not even appeal to fresh up. But, I heard a sound of running water. And under some wooden blanks there was a mechanism to opens a vault if the water level gets to low. By pushed it manually we got as much fresh water as we wanted. I would even trust to drink it after filtering. But we still had drinking water, and therefor used this fresh water to wet my cycling cap, buff, and partially my t-shirt. That was really nice. I already told Fo so that it will not take long before I wanted to setup camp. I was getting really tired. Especially knowing that the climb to come is 1000m in elevation over a distance of 10km, on a path that could only be used by motorcycles, or cars with very high clearing. I am sure this will involve our first hike-a-bike and we need quite some time for that. We setup camp just before a very steep section and get the required rest for tomorrow’s challenge.
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