The 2026 AES event, The Tusayan Tussle, went off a bit differently than planned. With rain the night before, into the morning of the race, the consensus was that it was a bad idea to head out. There is death mud on parts of the route and we didn't want to trash the AZT by riding on wet trails.
So a bunch of mountain bikers, all ready to go. What to do?
Given that the rain was supposed to stop around 8am and restart around 2pm we did have a window to do something. Nancy had the idea to do a road ride on pavement on the Grand Canyon South rim - which is just a few miles north of Tusayan. There is a 7 mile section of road out to Hermit's Rest that does not allow car traffic - just busses and bikes. It has a number of canyon overlooks. So we could do some riding and sight seeing. A few folks were in so we decided to meet at the back country office to start. Turns out we had a group of 13 ready to do this.
The weather was a little unsettled all day, but rain passed mostly to the west of us and we did see a few big cloudbursts in the canyon. It made for some dramatic views. We ended up riding Hermit Road, then out to the South Kaibab Trailhead and Yaki point. It was an amazingly fun day and the consensus was that we need to do that again.
Unfortunately, after Yaki point, when everyone was heading back to camp to beat the rain, things took a turn for the not so great. More on that below. But first a bunch of pictures.
