First Couple Days

Well we made it out to New Mexico, took two days of 14.5 hours of driving but got here late Sunday nite. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were as boring as I remember. There are actually a few hills in Missouri along I-44 going towards Tulsa, that was a bit of surprise. There is also almost nothing between Oklahoma City and Amarillo TX. We passed by the restaurant with the worlds largest rocking chair and also went by the largest cross in the western hemisphere. Oh boy. We pulled into the campground outside of Santa Fe Monday morning and got things set up a bit then headed down to Albuquerque to pick up Rich at his friends place that he spent the weekend at. We head out of town just a bit to what is said is Albuquerque's premier ride, Otero Canyon. It was a nice ride, only about a thousand feet of climbing so it didn't totally kill us lowlanders, I think it started around 7200 feet above sea level. It was all pretty much in the scrubby woods without many scenic vistas but the downhill (you actually do it twice) was in pretty good shape and fun. Total of about 15 miles. We lucked out and missed the rain that was pretty much all over Albuquerque. A quick stop at the grocery store and back the hour to the campground. We pretty much picked up where we left off, some really great burgers and howie's cheesie potatoes.

Day two was more normal, we got up around 6:30 and started getting things together, cereal for breakfast and once we pried Princess outta bed we were headed to the trailhead by about 9am. This ride is supposed to be one of the primo ride in the Santa Fe area, Glorietta Baldy, so named for where it starts and Mt Baldy where it tops out. We actually parked and started from this massive Baptist retreat "city" for lack of a better work. A couple miles down the paved road and we started up the dirt road, and up and up and up. The total climb was about 11 miles, from 7200 to 10200 feet with a few ups and downs in there so we musta climbed at least 3500 feet. The last mile or so had at least the three of us, kevin, rich, and princess walking our bikes. Howie was out in front far enough that Im not sure how much he walked but was very impressive on how much he did ride. I don't think the climb would have been as bad had we been more acclimated to the altitude, but basically it sucked. We finally reached the summit after about 2.5 hours of climbing.

You can see the retreat center down below us in the center of the picture

This was our first view of single track, FINALLY. The track was a bit on the loose side and had some challenging switchbacks to start. It degraded into an old almost fall line hiking trail that was really loose with babyhead size rocks. It alternated between what I would call decent sustainable trail and this loose mess for the next mile or so. There were some nice sections and the last half mile or so was really fun, some mini slickrock riding at points. We had a little bit of navigating to get around some barbed wire fence at the bottom but made it out to the road that would take us back to the truck. There was a bit of debate on whether the heinous climb was worth 5 miles of that type of single track and the majority seemed to feel probably not. But it was still a good ride.