72.41 mi / 6:25:22 time / 11.2 mph avg. / 41.0 mph max. / 5428 ft. climbing
Staying at Kearny Lake Campground

The rain continued on and off throughout the night, with some inconsiderate fool leaving the spigot in the “on” position when I awoke in the morning. At least my gamble to skip the tent again and sleep on the picnic table had paid off. The wind never picked up through the night, so the overhead canopy and some strategic positioning was enough to keep me from getting wet. And then packing up camp was much cleaner, drier, and easier, since I didn’t have to figure out how to collapse a wet tent in the rain. Still, it took me a while to get packed up, because I spent a lot of time just sitting on the table, staring at the rain in glum disbelief.

I’ve read bike tour journals where people talk about an afternoon shower that will pass by, wet them down for 20 minutes, cool them off, and then the sun will be back out to dry them off. I’ve now done over 100 days of bike touring, and that has never happened to me. It seems like for me, when it rains, it rains for three days straight, at least.

Eventually I strapped on the rain gear and headed out into it. It mostly stopped after about 10 miles, but I still ended up soaked because I had to climb a 2500 ft. hill in my rain gear, which makes you sweat just a bit. After the top of the hill, I turned west onto US-60, and hit the decaying mining town of Miami. I did get an awesome breakfast burrito at a popular burrito stand there though.

Then I had to go up and down another 1500 ft. worth of hill over an 18 mile stretch of the fast and busy US-60, a test I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. It would have been difficult under normal conditions, but adding four miles of construction at the final stretch to the summit made it one of the most hair-raising and stressful rides I’ve ever done. I had to pull out every trick I knew, including off-roading, riding on the shoulder on the wrong side of the road, pulling off to let barrelling trucks pass, or simply gunning it over short stretches to get to the next safe spot. The only thing I had gong in my favor was that it wasn’t raining.

Until I crested the summit, and then the rain started to fall again. Ah, noon in Arizona on Memorial Day weekend, and it’s 59 degrees and I’m soaking wet. Even though there was no construction on the downhill, it was still difficult because whenever a passing lane would appear in the oncoming direction, it would eliminate the shoulder on my side. And the road was so busy and full of trucks that there would always be a line of cars jumping into the oncoming passing lane, giving no chance for vehicles on my side to slide around me. I’ve seen people debate the use of a rear-view mirror for bike touring, which makes no sense to me. At least on a road like this, there is no debate: without my mirror, my chances of making it through alive would have been rather small.

Despite all that, there were a couple moments where I could see through the raindrops on my glasses that I was descending through a rather spectacular canyon. If it wasn’t raining, if my life wasn’t hanging in the balance, and if I hadn’t just been through some of the most awe-inspiring canyons in the world over the last few weeks, I might have snapped a photo or two.

At one point, I went through a tunnel, and when I came out the other end, the sun was shining! Soon after, I eagerly turned off the US-60 nightmare onto the much more pleasant AZ-77. I even stopped and optimistically took off my rain jacket, which might give the rest of my clothes a chance to dry out. I cursed myself for an idiot when it started dripping again 10 minutes later, but it soon stopped, and didn’t start again for the rest of the day. Hooray!

I had one more hill to climb, and although this was the shortest of the three, it was shockingly steep, with over a mile of steady 10% grade. I gave a big holler at the top, /because although I have one more good hill to climb tomorrow, this was the final real beast on a trip that has laid out many for me to conquer. RARGH!!

On the descent, I passed the Ray Copper mine, which is an incomprehensibly huge hole in the ground. Seeing the enormous mining equipment standing out as specks on the high ledges makes made me want to compare what such trucks would look like if they were crawling the walls of the Grand Canyon. Ok, so maybe we could do a computer simulation of that one rather than using the real thing.

When I pulled into the nice-but-slightly-unsettling pre-planned town of Kearny (planned by the mining company, presumably) I considered the motel, and even checked the rate ($62). I was so sick of rain and the threat of rain that I wasn’t sure I wanted to camp out. But before making my decision, I went over to the pizza joint and polished off an entire Medium pie. I spent enough time there to see that the skies were clearing up pretty nicely, so that gave me more confidence for camping. I talked to a guy wearing a RAGBRAI shirt, and inquired about camping at the next town 10 miles down the road (it wasn’t yet 4pm), but he said I’d have “less trouble” here in Kearny. Ok, so I took his advice.

The free campground (it seems like I’ve paid very little for camping the last week) is just outside the edge of town, and there isn’t another soul here. There are mountains in every direction, being lit and shaded by the dappled sunlight poking through the scattered clouds. There is no shelter or shade, so it would be brutal here under normal conditions, but when it’s only 75 degrees, it’s beautiful. Running water, flush toilets, and amazingly flat and well-groomed sites. I took a stroll around the small lake just above the campground, which attracts a lot of birds as well as townfolk getting their evening exercise.

Even though the rain and cold over the last few days has been rather annoying and not at all what I was expecting, I have to wonder if sun and heat would be worse. Since the ultimate (75 degrees and clear skies) is probably impossible, maybe I’d take the rain if given the choice. Either way, I’ve been very impressed with this part of the state; the combination of topography and vegetation are like nothing I’ve seen before and quite unexpected. And all the clouds hanging between the mountain slopes probably made it even more dramatic. Now let’s just hope that 10% chance of showers and thunderstorms doesn’t come to pass!

This entry was posted on Friday, May 22nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm and is filed under 2009 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.