Hawes to Gold Canyon

Nancy and I had been trying to decide all week where to ride this weekend. After last weekend's APC ride , we didn't want to go too big, but didn't want to go too small either. Hawes was suggested, but not really big enough. Same with Gold Canyon - fun, but we wanted more. So Thursday I got an email from John suggesting a shuttle ride that started at Red Rock park - west of Hawes - that went through Hawes AND Gold Canyon, ending near Peralta. Hell, why not do both? The route included Pass Mountain and connected through the Goldfield area -where we had never been. So, IN.

The day started a bit chilly. And by this year's standards, chilly is not all that chilly. We started off doing some trails out of Red Rock park. I think the area is known as TRW. Really fun stuff. Then headed off across Power road to Hawes.

Taking a break to take of the early morning chill clothes. 

Cranking along on some really fun trails. 

The "red rock" in the distance - looking all cool with the morning sun and clouds

Nancy enjoying the flow

After riding through Hawes, we crossed the road over to a really sandy trail that brought us into the main trail around Pass Mountain.

John dropping down a little rock.

Bulldog canyon in the distance

Such great views from up here

The ride wouldn't be complete without some hike-a-bike. The Pass mountain trail is happy to oblige

A little food break at the top of the pass

Time to head back down. Watch that edge!

John eyeing "the scar"

This little section of rock doesn't look like much from the pictures, but it sure is scary when you are rolling it. I made a slow, tight turn here to get down.

John setting up the shot where I go over the bars. I bailed before giving him that shot. 

You can barely make out John coming down from the pass. We were up there at the top just moments ago. 

 Out of the Pass Mountain area - heading towards Goldfields. Superstition mountains in the distance.

 In order to connect everything together, we had to hit the road though some neighborhoods. This house had a dragon on their rooftop deck.

Heading back into the hills

The dirt calls to us

Back on dirt (road)

Tons of really cool rocks out there

Rolling along

Rolling through the Goldfields area toward the Superstitions. They were a constant "presence" looming in the distance. 

A random "shed" with graffiti

Down to 88 for a little snack break at the Bluebird Mine Gift Shop.

They did me right with the hot dog. All the stuff on it and even toasted the bun. Yum. 

The, um, alternate route into Lost Dutchman state park

So this is a mountain bike trail, apparently. It was fairly smooth, but the turns were rather tight. I'm thinking not designed by a mountain biker. 

Riding the Jacob's crosscut trail. It was just techy enough to be a lot of work, but not so much that it wasn't rideable. It was just tiring. But look at that mountain in the background. Awesome. 

Lots o' saguaro in this area.

For whatever reason, I stopped taking pictures at this point.

At a certain point along Jacob's crosscut the trail started to really degrade and John said it would be bad for a while. So we dropped down to a neighborhood and wound through the streets. This detour took us under a wall and through a gated neighborhood and past some really spectacular houses. We hooked up into the Gold Canyon trail network, but didn't spend a lot of time there due to how late it was. We ended the ride with a fun little trail that paralleled Peralta road and took us back to John's car.

Another full day of riding and another great adventure completed. And although it was a wee bit colder than the year has been so far (only in the 60s), it was still a fabulous day to be out riding around the desert.