Cotton-Junction

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, which roughly translates to “get fall down drunk”. Well, I’ve fallen down many times in my life, and crawling around on your hands and knees is not where I want to be right now. So I spent the weekend up north camping up with my clan away from the mexican cantinas. I was going to leave the bike behind for this trip, but at the last minute the Mamasonga told me to pack it up and I could ride out of camp early Sunday morning and she would pick me up along the way. This was great news, I get to ride, and I don’t have to pack up the campsite on Sunday.

Logically I could do a big loop back to camp, or taking advantage of the travel, have the pit crew pick me up many miles south on the way back home. I decided to piece together a couple routes with the help of One Gear Ray and his library of GPX files. The plan was to leave Cottonwood and travel up and over Mingus Mtn and descend into Cordes Junction on the Black Canyon Trail system.

56 miles
8 hours ride
8800′ Total Ascent

As usual, you don’t get a lot verbiage about the adventures. The B.P.R. fans just want the pictures. The story is told…

Cottonwood to Cordes Junction

Cotton Jct – 2013 – Profile

SS rig naked, with Mingus in background

Your mom’s house…

3,000 plus calories for an 8 hour ride

Tuzigoot National Monument. Aliens.

Cooling off in the Verde River

Mingus

It’s this steep, just look at the background. Pictures are proof.

Way up there!

Prehistoric crack house…or something

Locking up running water should be a crime.

Made it to the top…so I think…

…not the top yet

Would like spigots trail side on all my rides

finally made it up to tree line. Shade in the pines

Burnt Canyon Tank – recon water source for the CAZ500

Great!

Smokey

Russian Well

I couldn’t find a spigot, which means it only filled this stock tank. I didnt’ investigate as there was a steer in the corral. I’ll pet a beaver all day long, but I’m not going into an enclosed corral with a steer.