blinky blinky

Junebug took me for an exploring ride. We wanted to review the route (using Painter Boy) that the Antelope Peak Challenge will take to make a more direct route from the Willow Springs road to the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo venue. Then we rolled up to "the blinky light", a radio tower high above the desert, to ride down to the venue on singletrack. Stans to Stickman to Painter Boy to Bones.


Outbound on Painter Boy

It was sprinkling when we embarked. The weather stayed off in other places for the most part until about an hour in. We were stopped to work on June's dragging rear brake rotor when it began to rain a bit harder. We pulled out rain jackets and put them on. Almost immediately the rain slowed, within 5 minutes it stopped.

My theory is that the rain gods look down. They throw some rain at you, then watch to see how you react. If you're prepared and not terribly traumatized, things tend to go better. If you're wearing a hawaiian shirt, baggies with a single clif bar in the pocket, a single water bottle and no pack, you're going to see serious weather.

Painter Boy was pretty easy to follow, but the connecting "trail" to Willow Springs was mostly cow path. We made two meanders off the trail in less than half a mile, but then found the intersection of the service road up to the blinky light and Willow Springs Road.

The climb up to the blinky was not bad, at least by Colorado standards. From up top the view was splendid.





Then it was time to start riding the ridge on a faint trail known as Stans. It sometimes was hidden by overgrown bunch grass, marked by tiny cairns and sticks for the most part. But it was followable. Sometimes I had to slow to a near trackstand and look around, but only a few times had to stop to hunt around ahead for a cairn or visible bit of trail. It reminded me of the Blue Dot trail above Moab.

The views were spectacular.





Great ride. Hoping that the weekend will be dryer, especially Sunday.