Tues. Sept. 27, 2016,
Mesa CG to Silver City
Start - ~6100'
High pt 7500'
Lo pt. ~5900'
End Elv ~5900'
Climbing ~2500'??
Miles ~30.8
Total time 5:00
Ride time 3:40
Day with BOB 49
1 continental divide crossings, #28 ?
The day off exploring yesterday was cloudy with occassional rain showers, indeed there was the pitter patter on the roof of camper as we went to sleep last night.
This morning, it is partly to mostly cloudy, but no rain. I decide to drop the trailer and ride the single track CDT alternative.
This has me back tracking a few miles until I leave the hwy, and all people as it turns out, behind for 12 miles. Along the way I see dozens of turkey vultures roosting in a dead tree, amazing.
The trail starts off as a ATV trail and climbs up the ridge along Skates Canyon. I find the cairned single track turn off, and have to double check, as it is not a well worn trail, and looks a little dodgy. A little ridge riding around Skates brings me to a long gentle up hill stretch rising with the mesa terrain. It is pretty green up here and while the trail is cairned in the juniper, pinon and yucca forest, the cairns are mostly hiding in grasses. The trail is lightly used and faint for long stretches, with rounded and broken lava rock generously applied. I have to hike a bike 3 or 4 times due to loose rock.
It is lightly used, and I see no one, see no signs of man, other than the trail and its markers. I finished the single track portion in another healthy ponderosa forest, and take series of forest roads out to meet the paved route near the top of a climb. A long down hill and modest climb takes me to Pinos Altos, a small mining town who's main street is a forgotten link to the old west.
Just out of town is another divide crossing, and then 8 swooping downhill miles to the city of Silver.
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