Saturday, September 17, 2016

GDT Day 44 - Lonesome Juniper to Grants

Fri Sept. 16, 2016
 Lonesome Juniper campsite near Felipe Tafoya Land Grant boundary to Grants

Start - ~6750'
High pt  ~9100'
Lo pt. ~6425'
End Elv ~6425'
Climbing ~3000'??

Miles ~48
Total time ~6:45
Ride time 5:20
Day with BOB 42

A chill and fine morning, looking at day 8 in a row, a bit tired and looking at 2500 to 3000 feet of climbing over 40 miles today. Anticiating a rest day in Grants, and want to get going a little earlier for a longer day.
However I am enjoying the warmth of the sun as I break fast under Lonesome Juniper, and watch the painting shift on this landscape as old Sol rises once more.

As I continue to ride through this mesa canyon country, I look to the north west, toward Chaco canyon maybe 50 miles distance. Certainly the Chacoans had been in this country before me. Are there dwellings and ruins? Forgotten fields in the bottoms lands? Evidence of ancient irrigation? To time or right to explore this private holdings, but I would not be surprised.

The roads improve periodically as I start to wrap around the northen mesa flank of Mount Taylor.

I crest a climb, pause to recover and absorb, when I feel a strange sensation. A chill runs down my spine. What is this, a tail wind? At last. The rarest of winds changes the nature of the strange sensation, and  I have a companion to help me climb.

I start my climb up back into pinon and then ponderosa forests. I crest the flank at San Mateo Springs, though they are dry at this late date. Then down down down to Grants.

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