November 9
46mi/74km
+2800ft/850m
We left town this morning climbing on highway 77 toward Tucson. At first it was nice. Little traffic, nice shoulder, not too hot out. The descent was less pleasant. The shoulder disappeared, there were some hostile trucks, and the gradients were steep.
Still, we rode through some beautiful scenery and cool canyons of the Pinal mountains. We stopped for lunch at a free campground near the Gila River, and made plans with our friend Randy to come meet us at camp.
We left 77 near Dudleyville to get back on a dirt road going over the Tortilla mountains. We passed a lot of barking dogs, but fortunately they were all fenced in and not able to chase us. We came to a drainage and found a man in a truck had just slid out in the mud and gotten stuck. I thought we were done with the mud, but I got my feet wet one more time to cross the drainage.
It was a hot afternoon as we climbed into the mountains, but the scenery was great. The desert is very green from all the rain. I could hear the familiar calls of cactus wrens and curve billed thrashers.
We met up with Randy and found a nice pullout to set up camp. He brought us soda and water and chips! It was nice to catch up and weird to think about how close we are to the end.
