I woke up covered in ice today.
My bivvy bag can't breathe when it's covered in a layer of frost so my sleeping bag was wet with condensation and had lost most of it's insulating powers.
'Brrrrr! The desert is freezing today.'
There was a thick layer of frost on everything this morning all my bags, my shoes, the bike.
Clear skies mean cold nights. All that heat just shoots off into the empty sky. Fortunately clear skies mean sunny mornings to warm me up and dry things off a little before I pack up.
Maybe it's time to break out the tent tonight? It's bound to get colder as I climb up. Eventually I'll cross the Main Divide, the mountainous spine that runs down the continent. Besides I can't have everything soaked with frozen dew every morning. It slows me down when I'm not at my best anyway.
Today I woke up at 1000ft and it was -1 C. Tonight I'll sleep at 3000 ft it will be colder than this.
Until now I have mostly been riding through basin and range country. Highways cross the wide, open desert 'basins' with distant mountains all around. I've been endlessly biking up towards impending ranges only for the road to somehow find a way through. It never seems to involve actually approaching the mountains. There's always been a sneaky path between the hills, I gain and lose altitude without ever feeling like I'm mountains terrain.
Today's a different story, an uphill journey from 1000 ft to cross a pass at 4400ft -over 50 miles of getting up close and personal with the mountain terrain.
From 1000 to 2000ft the road slowly wound its way snaking between the bigger mountains. Twisting and turning to display fine pale sandstone cliffs and bulky mountains rising high above the surrounding folded desert. The Sapporo cacti gradually thinned out, with woody shrubs increasingly filling in the gaps.
In the mountain town of Superior I stopped to have lunch. There's not much there, a couple of gas stations, restaurants and some closed down businesses,evidence of a mining industry.
A native American girl tried to sell me a knife, as I already have one I declined. She excitedly called her boyfriend over to see me, they were apparently delighted to discover a real Englishman making his own up of tea on a stove. I suspect they made conversation partly just to hear my accent.
I asked them how life was in the mountain town, " It's little slow, there's not a lot of work." he told me. He asked me how it was in England ,"It's difficult for some, but not as bad as out here. " I honestly replied.
He tried to sell me a 3 litre bottle of chilli sauce he had stolen from work. When I declined once more, on the grounds of weight. He gave me a packet of m&ms as a gift.
Nearly every encounter I have with everyday Americans is in some way heart warming. Some, like this one, are also tinged an air of tragedy.
After lunch the road got a lot steeper. Nearly to the limit of what I can ride laden down as I am. The snaking path wound up through layers of pink sandstone, the white and grey limestone. Limestone and giant cacti make strange bedfellows.
I love mountains more than any other type of landscape and it was so good to be back where I really belong. Around every bend was new view, down into a hidden valley or looking up at the gendarmes in the cliffs.
This road doesn't just climb the mountain goes right through it at one point. The Queen Creek Tunnel is a memorable experience for any cyclist. The tunnel is about 400m long on a steep incline, there is not a significant shoulder for shelter.
Trucks and big American cars roar up the road, round the blind bend and into the tunnel, their huge engines don't seem bothered by the hills. The last thing they expect to see is a cyclist going at 5mph.
In the tunnel the noise of the traffic coming the other way is amplified like nothing I've experienced before. It's like riding into the a monster's lair, wobbling and puffing, praying for a safe deliverance to other side.
Half way through and still there has been nothing coming my way. Was I going to make it through without being passed? No such luck, a Big Rig Truck comes rolling into view over my shoulder. Will he see me? Will he give me the space I need? I am momentarily terrified.
Fortunately my flashing lights and high vis-vest combined with this driver's awareness of the road keep me safe this time. 2 more SUVs pass by and I'm overwhelmed with relief to emerge into the daylight on the up-hill side. The 2 minutes of panic are over, my thighs feel like they are going to explode. 'Never again' I promise myself as I take a snap of the mouth of the tunnel.
The steep ascent, twisting trail and lack of shoulder continue as I make my way up a picturesque gorge. Now surrounded by reddish sandstone cliffs, pinnacles to my left and a deep river valley to my right it was a great place to be. My spirits lifted by the deciduous trees in Autumn attire. The rest of the climb up went by fairly painlessly.
I paused to photograph a large pool of ice at the roadside in a place called Devils Canyon. Have you ever noticed that many natural beauty spots are attributed to the devil? It is a world wide phenomenon.
These are places where the natural world inspires people.In the past many of them worshiped nature and made such places sacred. Hence these places were vilified by those bringing Christianity who saw it was the devils work to worship anything other than The Lord himself.
Much of Britain's own early history has been all but lost though the same process.
I eventually I arrived at 4000ft. The red sandstone pinnacles of the canyons gave way to an upland plain with white granite boulders and plentiful bushes. This place calls itself the top of the world, if you got there on a bike it's easy to see why. I was exhausted.
Rolling down the far side of the pass a new set of mountains came into view. I was momentarily torn between stopping to try and photograph them and maintaining momentum. I qickly realised however, that the landscape was scarred by open cast mines. The tops and sides of the hill have been blown off and terraced in search of copper.
Like at the iron mines of Queenstown, Tasmania I visited in 2005, these hills have been completely destroyed to supply our mineral needs.
European settlers came here in search of silver and gold, they fought many a bloody battle with the Apache tribes who once called all of these mountains home. Now the silver is a secondary resource. Large scale copper mining is the area's main industry.
The tumble down mining equipment, tatty buildings, battered pick ups and large numbers of Native American faces all give the Arizona towns of Miami and Globe a bit of an Old West feel.
I passed these atmospheric towns at sunset but pushed on through into the San Carlos Apache Nation. An Indian reservation.
After putting up my tent in the dark and eating dinner I settled down to read my book. Camped in thick bushes off the roadside, I discovered the forest of the San Carlos is home to: mule deer, wild pigs, deer, coyotes, mountain lions and BLACK BEARS.
Bears eh?...... I didn't know that.
They are one of the things I am most definately scared of. I wish I hadn't just prepared and eaten my meal inside my tent.
They probably steer clear of the road, right?
I'll move the food bag to somewhere else and hope for the best.
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