Tour of the Southwest (2004 Spring)

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Tour of the Southwest or Four Days, Four States, Four Rides

It was Thursday. Tom called and asked if I was interested in going on a Mountain Bike road trip. Spring break was a few days away and he was itching for a get away. I was interested but couldn't take off a whole nine days but could probably make four or five days. Dam, I was jazzed my first real vacation since I went to Moab a couple of years ago. We were going to leave Wednesday afternoon and be back by the following Sunday.

Day 0:
I went to work that morning for a couple of hours. I was hyped up all morning in anticipation of the trip or was it trepidation of my dental appointment at noon. It must of been the dental appointment, I remember squeezing the arms of the chair as I saw that 2 foot long needle. As my mouth was getting numb I mumbled to my dentist that I was headed down to the southwest for some mountain biking. She mentioned that she and her husband were down in Sedona a couple of years before for some mountain biking and that they had a great time. She suggested we should drop by the Bike and Bean in Sedona for the best trail info. Neat dentist, huh.

After my fillings, it was off to Tom's place to load up his stuff. We left town at 2:00pm for the long 10 hour drive to Gooseberry. After a few uneventful food and gas stops, we pulled into a small campsite around midnight. This was going to be are MO for the rest of the trip.

Day 1:
I guess the call ahead to reserve the trail worked! We were the only ones at the

trailhead. We had the trail to ourselves. I must say I was little disconcerted about the lack of topography, where were the hills? It looked kind of flat out there. It didn't take me long to forget the lack of vertical. This trail had plenty of challenges. Gooseberry was a combination of slickrock and singletrack. If you ever did Slickrock at Moab then you have an idea of what it's like; but Gooseberry is like Slickrock on steroids. Not only were the climbs steep but there were numerous ledges and tight turns thrown in ( video 1, video 2, video3). Not only was the riding great but the views were spectacular (photo 1, photo 2, photo 3). We enjoyed the trail so much we decided to do a second lap. When we were done we were both exhausted but contented. Gooseberry is one of the best trails we have ridden.

But, there's no rest for the weary. We cleaned and packed and headed on out. We had a date in Sedona!

Day 2:
 

Photos
Gooseberry
Sedona
Bootleg Canyon
Rock Creek
 

 
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This site was last updated 03/31/04