A Grand Adventure

John Schilling has been trying to get this Flagstaff to Grand Canyon ride going for a while. The goal was to ride the Arizona Trail from Bismark Lake (near Flagstaff) to the Grand Canyon. At the beginning of the summer the ride was cancelled due to unusually high temperatures (a wise choice in retrospect) and a tentative retry date was set for the last weekend in September, when the weather should have been better. As the weekend approached, all signs pointed to "GO".

The starting roster changed up until Friday night, with the various things that get in the way of a good time. However, we ended up with 6 brave souls (John, Phillip, Derek, Caroline, Nancy, Jeff) camping out (if you call sleeping in your car camping out) in sub freezing temps at the Bismark Lake trailhead on Friday night. Ray was a "maybe" and would meet us where AZT crossed 418 if he was able to go.

Dawn broke on a cold Saturday morning.

We suited up and got rolling up the hill to the AZT.

Ice crunched under tires, but spirits were high.

Yeah, it was that cold.

There was a good bit of deadfall on the first, downhill section of the AZT. 

I started out what would be a bad trend on that first section by having a slow leak. Turned out it was a pinhole in my tire that the Stan's was not plugging. When was the last time I checked that? And why didn't I do it before this HUGE ride? D'oh. Fortunately, I carry a small bottle of the magic liquid. Squirted about half the bottle in my tire and the hole sealed right up. Yay. 

Motored on down the trail to meet the group at the 418 intersection. Ray was there waiting for us. So, now we were the magnificent 7. Headed out through the Aspen.

I don't have John's photo skills, but tried to get a shot of these little plants, covered in frost. 

The peak starts to recede

We rolled off the shoulders of the mountains and out into wide open prarie. It felt like we were in Wyoming at times. 

Came upon a group of horses who were likely wondering what the heck we were doing out there.

Snack time

One of MANY gates. We couldn't get it open, so just hopped it. I'd love to know how many gates there are across the AZT. I'd bet the number is in the 100s.

Only 24.2 miles to the actual rim of the GC(Grandview). Then another 20 to our final destination.

The trail was pretty hard to follow in some parts. Doesn't appear that it gets much traffic. 

There was some discussion about whether this was ACTUALLY Russell Tank. However, it was definitely completely dry. 

And a nearby cistern was not much help. 

OK, so the actual Russell Tank is still a ways away. It turned out to be completely dry as well. And this is after an unusually rainy monsoon this year. It is really good that we did not attempt this ride earlier in the year when it was hot. 

This guy apparently did attempt the ride during that hot spell. 

We came upon a burn section that was still smoking in spots. It wasn't clear if this was a controlled burn or what. No one was around. 

First glimpse of the canyon in the background. 

Ha! We don't need to walk no bicycles. 

OK, well maybe we do. 

Grandview trailhead. Spitting distance from the rim, but still 20 miles to go to Mather campground. 

Back at an earlier gather point Derek and Phil had decided that they were going to go at a more relaxed pace and were going to take the road from Grandview to the campground. The rest of us had a bit of a debate about whether to continue on the AZT or jump on the road to the campground when we got to Grandview. The argument was going pretty strongly toward the road, as we were anxious to finish before dark. However, John rolled up (he was taking some pictures) and swung the argument back to the AZT. A tougher way to go, but it seemed like we could probably make the campground just before dark. 

So, off we went down the trail. Then Ray had an issue with his back tire. Threw in some Stan's and motored on. Still leaking. There was a shallow slice that we couldn't really see where it was leaking. Ray got out his sewing needle, but it just  broke on the "Protection" sidewall - that was supposed to prevent this sort of slice. Tried some super glue with gorilla tape on top. Rolled a mile or so before deciding that wasn't working. Messed with it some more and the group rolled on for a bit figuring Ray would catch up. When he didn't show by the next turn, I hung back to see how it was going. He finally rolled up and was rather frustrated that he couldn't get this thing to stop leaking. At that point it was time to throw in the towel and put in a tube. Got that done and we rolled out on a pretty fast section. The other folks were waiting for us at Tusayan. 

Additionally, Nancy had a slow leak at about the time that Ray was experiencing his issues. I put the rest of my little bottle of Stan's in her tire and that held until camp that night.

Even with all the messing with tires there was an outside chance of making it to camp by dark. We rolled out on some fast gravel trail,but when we were really close to the park, we had to stop again. Caroline had been having a slow leak for a while that we couldn't really figure out. Ray messed around with the tire and finally decided that she was leaking air from the valve stem - something I had not seen in over 25 years of mountain biking. We pumped her up and continued on - it was dusk and time to power up the lights. We rolled to the campground, found our spots and started setting up in the dark. Up rolled two guys on bikes. Derek and Phil had taken the road from Grandview, gotten some dinner, and still arrived at camp only minutes after us. Apparently they had flagged down an Arizona Game and Fish crew and hitched a bone-chilling ride to Grand Canyon Village in the bed of a pickup truck... a spot normally reserved for elk carcasses. I'll bet that smelled nice. So, there could be some debate about who made the better choice at the Grandview trailhead.

The rest of us walked down to the bus to go get dinner. We wanted to go to the Bright Angel Steakhouse, but there was some confusion about how late the buses ran (our driver insisted 9pm, while everyone else said 10) and we didn't want to risk missing the bus back, so we opted for the cafeteria at Market Plaza. Not the greatest dining experience, but it did the trick. 

I think that most of us slept pretty good that night - not counting the two car alarms that went off during the night. I much prefer camping out in the middle of nowhere.

Got up somewhat bright and early to find Nancy's tire completely flat. Apparently my fix of the prior day didn't cut it. I couldn't find a hole, so I took off the tire and dunked it in the dish cleaning sink at the bathrooms (good suggestion, Ray). Found a small hole and a bigger one. The Stan's I put in the previous day was not sealing it. So we decided not to mess around like we had done with Ray's tire and just put in Nancy's slime tube. Her slime tube had been in storage a while and wouldn't even begin to hold air. Good grief. Caroline offered up her little bottle of Stan's. However, at this point the tire was off and the bead was broken - making an attempt to remount it tubeless a dicey proposition. Nancy had some CO2 cartridges - making it a distinct possibility that this could work. We dumped in the Stan's, cranked in some CO2, and the tire mounted right up. However, it was still leaking from the bigger hole. Nancy broke out her "tire bacon" (essentially, a small strand of the tire plug material used for cars). And we shoved some of that in the hole. Pumped the tire up - it was holding! At this point it was no longer bright and early - and we had not even gotten to the actual rim. It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that we would end the day riding in the dark. 

Derek and Phil had decided to take the shuttle back to Flagstaff, so the rest of us motored over to South Kaibab to take in the view.  

Given that we were starting way later than we had hoped and we knew there were many mile to go, we decided to alter the return trip to make it quicker. That meant some on-the-fly route finding and some guesses about where we should go. A map at the ranger station gave us a general idea of what we wanted to do. We ended up doing 0% singletrack. It was all forest road and ranch roads and a little pavement - but turned out way faster than the first day.

After a stop at McDonalds (my first time to have a tasty, tasty McGriddle) in Tusayan for breakfast we headed out on the forest road. 

Mile after mile of really good forest roads. We were making great time and starting to reduce the amount of time we expected to be riding in dark. And then Ray got a pinch flat while bombing down a rocky section of road. Just when we thought we were done with tire issues. Fortunately, Derek had offered up an extra tube while we were back in camp - and Ray had accepted that offer. There was much thanks going out to Derek at that point. Back rolling for a bit - Caroline's tire was looking really low again. This time we decided to swap out the valve stem core with one from her spare tube. Pumped it up and on we rolled, hoping that this would be the last of the tire issues. Thankfully, it was. 

single speed mafia - rolling the flats

We eventually rolled out to 180 for a 12 mile stretch of pavement. On the way we ran into Derek. Before heading home, he had checked the SPOT location transmitted by a unit carried in John's pack.  Noticing that we had diverted from the scheduled route, he turned his SUV northbound to see if anyone needed assistance. Derek offered up some Clif Shots, which Nancy and Caroline eagerly accepted. He and Phil had had their own adventure. Apparently the shuttle from GC to Flag stops only at the airport and train station. So they had to take a cab from the train station to Snowbowl and ride from Snowbowl to the Bismark Lake trail head.  

On toward the finish - with more than enough daylight.  

We dumped off of the pavement onto 151 and rolled up to the split with 418 where we said "so long" to Ray. Then it was John, Nancy, Caroline and myself for the last couple of miles - which ended with a soul sucking ascent. But, as you can see by John's expression, we were just glad to be done during the day. 

So, 85 miles to the Rim over 12. 5 hours. And nearly 79 miles coming back over 9.5 hours. Another big adventure, successfully completed. Personally, I hurt in places I didn't even know I had. But I wouldn't give back the experience for anything. Always great to push the limits - especially with such a terrific group of people.

One of the great things about this was the way we all pitched in with materials and expertise to solve a number of tire related issues. Despite being experienced endurance riders, I think we all learned a few things from this. I'm going to end this with part of an email that Ray sent out this morning.

a few lessons learned that I'm taking away from the last 2 days 

1. Stans is gold...carry 2 bottles on these trips 

2. Bring CO2, gets you back tubeless if you need to break the bead.

3. Tire bacon, everything is better with bacon 

4. Conti-x Kings w Protection are designed NOT to have their sidewalls stitched.

5. Don't ride like an idiot when you have a tube in your rear tire 

6. Bring a gun next time to shoot the guy who's car alarm went off at 2AM 

7. Always freshen up the stans before big rides 

8. Check the integrity of your spare tubes before the trip