November 4
33mi/53km
+3700ft/1100m
Man oh man, today kicked our butts! The morning was pretty nice. We had a big climb, and the road was a little rocky, but totally rideable. We continued climbing onto some crumbling chipseal, which was also totally rideable. We were in fall foliage and enjoying the views.
But, all good things must come to an end, and when we returned to the dirt, it was immediately muddy. It was thick and sticky. It caked onto the bike tires and into our shoes. We pushed for a few miles. The worst mile took us 35 minutes, slower than normal hiking pace.
It was tiring and demoralizing, but eventually we started getting rideable patches of dry road, and conditions improved from there. We saw a huge herd of elk, at least 50. We passed plenty of hunting camps and hunters riding dune buggies. We stopped 7mi/11km shy of our intended destination tonight. We should have known Arizona would be rugged, it always is. New life bird today: Williamson’s Sapsucker.
