Spring Time Desert Riding

Craig and I headed Southwest last week for my art show in Scottsdale, Arizona. We stopped in Cortez, CO and rode at Phil's World on the way two days in a row. This is a really fun network of singletrack just outside Cortez, they've done a great job on these trails and even adding a new trail, Ledges, since we were there last and there are plans for more in the near future. It's a lovely spot and the trails are fast, pumpy and full of roller coaster singles and doubles. I think Ribcage is one of my favorite sections, you just can't stop grinning. We'll be back for more. There's a video below of me clearing a 3 footer, I was so stoked on this, a high lite of the trip.

View of the San Juans from Phil's in the evening.

Me flying on the Ribcage section, yeah!

A lovely, skinny section of trail with Mesa Verde in the distance.

Afterwards we headed to Scottsdale, AZ near Phoenix for my show, my favorite drive of all time. As usual we hit up South Mountain for some riding on The National Trail. A gnarly and technical ride for sure whether your climbing it or going down. Lotsa fun, but it's a desert mountain island surrounded by city so you don't get that out there in the middle of nowhere feeling, a lot of people about but you lose most of them when you head up the trail. We did see two coyotes out loping about. I have a video below of myself riding the Waterfall section, we didn't stop and take a lot of pics on this ride. Craig and I were both feeling a little off this day, I think we were both ready to get out of the city and be on our way.

Me having fun on National.

After the show we headed to Sedona for some more great riding and beautiful scenery, luckily we didn't fall into any vortexes. This place is gorgeous however it's completely surrounded by wildnerness so no mechanized vehicles and that means bikes. So all of the riding surrounds the town/city up to the wilderness boundary. This means kick ass riding for all abilities but it also means a lot people using the same trails a lot of the time, hard to get away from it all but totally worth it. We had better mojo this day and felt more relaxed in our surroundings.

Thunder Mountain in West Sedona. This is where we did a very fun and challenging out and back. It was definitely more challenging going in then coming out. What a beautiful place, it's really amazing.

Wall Ride, this was a pretty steep/vert wall we played on, so fun.

Craig riding the Wall.

Riding the edge.

Craig and I feeling happy to be out and away on an adventure. The show went well, caught up with some friends and met some new ones. I made some money which in this day and age is not easy to do with art and I won an award which is reassuring and I'm grateful. Can't wait to go back next year.

Too see all of the pictures from the trip check out my Flickr site.

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