unseasonably cool, moist air, the desert has returned. Scott lures me into his computer cave with the promise of a “route” to Phoenix. His personal computer may be one of the greatest resources for digitized bikepacking routes in the world, with a special emphasis on Arizona and the Southwest. He loads a few GPS tracks with embedded details such as “New AZT, Sweet” or “Possible water source”. We pedal away with a casual wave. I know we’ll see each other again. Two people on non-linear paths are likely to meet more than once. At least, it is possible. None of us will be traveling straight anytime soon. Over the next three days, reflections from the summer culminate in an emotional ride between Tucson and Phoenix. We ride out of town on a familiar stretch of pavement, pedaling into the freezing night and out of the glow of the city to reach a dirt road and a campsite on public land. Waking to clearing skies, the day brings us into wide-open Arizona. At each turn, distant mountains are less distant. By evening, we reconnect with the AZT and descend towards the Gila River. Somehow, I’ve thought that every day since May 8th has been better than the last. Way down south in mid-December, bathed in
the warm technicolor light of sunset along a section of the Arizona Trail, we experience moments of perfection. The trail carves hillsides along the river for twelve miles, mirrored across the valley only by train tracks, but no road. Finally, it turns up an impossibly steep mining track away from the river, settling on a more gradual singletrack gradient through a forest of saguaro and ocotillo. The three to four foot wide surface is an example of the kind of durable trail being built for the AZT. At a steady grade, it climbs over 1,000 feet from the river and crosses an arroyo. It climbs another 1,000 feet, cresting the ridge that has dominated the horizon for the last hour. For lack of imagination I had expected a forested plateau at the top, but instead there is a large rocky bowl encircled by trail, which disappears as a trace over another distant ridge. This will be the last climb of the summer, and the last ridge – the last descent, the last day on dirt, the last sunburn, and the last taste of food and water as a finite resource. This is the last chance to capture it, contain it, and pack it away for safekeeping. We’re going to Alaska for the winter. BV
Bunyan Velo 185