Kim & I left sedona about 8, rode out fr618 to hwy 260, & turned into camp verde to meet Tom.
We met at the intersection of salt mine road & 260 in camp verde, rode up salt mine & turned off up copper canyon. This is the canyon that I-17 cuts down coming into the verde valley from the south.
This is a pretty cool trail. It is fairly narrow, with lots of trees overhanging.. some water & quite a few rocks.
Some contemporary petroglyphs..
Tom's thumb was still a little sore, Kim cardio wouldn't let him get into anything too rough, & i'm just a sissy. So we weren't going to get in too deep if the trail got rough.
Here's a vid of the climb up. ~3 min.
The video's are uncut & the sound isn't very good.. just turn the volume down to cut out the wind noise.
Once to this spot, we decided to look up a little to see if we wanted to go on. We had gotten off the main trail.. about 50 yds back we could get back on it. So first i climbed up with tales of steep rocky climbs & near death experiences. Tom wanted to see for himself, so he actually got off his bike & walked up to see. Kim was already turning around.
Tom coming back after looking ahead.
We all agreed that if it wasn't so hot, we'd do this ride easily. But now we were turning back to go up another way.
We made it a little over half way up copper canyon..
Some of the trail along the riparian area... i saw a deer run across the path, several squirrels, & of course the cow in the earlier vid clip.
We got back down the trail, planning another try in the fall. But we needed to get up high fast. It was already past 10am & near 100*!
We went up cherry road, then took 169 out to dewey. Then we slabbed it some more down 69 to the poland road turnoff. Here we made it into the pines.
I'm still figuring out imageshack.. i like some things about it, but i missed the sizing on this last one... too lazy to change it, so i just put it in as a thumbnail...
There was a lot of variety on this road.. long easy gravel, switchbacks, some tough rocky climbs, & all in the cool pines.
Tom wanted us to go to his house where Paula, his lovely wife, had a hearty lunch waiting.. but he also wanted me to install the maps in his computer so he could see where he was going. No problem.. i'll trade a map install for one of Paula's gourmet meals anytime!
At Tom's house. Me, Tom, Kim.
We drank Tom's beers, ate most of the food, listened while Tom dazzled us with some drumming, then got back on the bikes & headed for home. Kim & I still had 50+ miles to go through jerome & back to sedona.
On 89a out of prescott.
As we climbed over mingus, i took a couple of vid clips.. these are kind of long & boring, but they show some of the scenery. The first is about 5 min, the second is almost 10, but with more sedona & verde valley views.
Coming down mingus mountain into jerome.
I lost Kim through the twisties, so just continued on home. We went about 200 miles, about half paved. A good ride. No crashes. No mechanical issues. Good food. Fun trails.
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