Last evening I got a view of Durango that was completely new to me. Sorry, didn't have the camera in tow... Last weekend Walker mentioned the new singletrack heading up Missionary Ridge that starts under the Edgemont sign up Florida road, so it was time to probe something new. To my surprise, this new trail extended roughly half way up the Durango Hills climb, cutting out much (almost all) of the residential riding and pops out onto FR 071. Bumpy as new trails tend to be, but a great singletrack climb just 10 minutes from my front door. Ah...it's good to be back!
But wait, there's more. This is the route commonly ridden to reach the Haflin descent or Missionary ridge trail, but the ridge top is still a bit wet/snowy above 9500' (it should still be 5 feet deep in snow, be scared, very scared). Rather than hit one of those trails, I looked for another route down along the southbound edge of the ridge. That's where the big views came into play - the LaPlatas, Weminuche, Animas Mtn, Animas river, my house - all in plain view from new perspectives. Evidently it's mostly private land - the amount of development up there was STAGGERING. Most of that terrain is 20-30% grade too, they will develop anywere around here.
In other news, Lynda and I are doing a Kokopelli Trail recon this weekend. Tomorrow is Moab to Dewey, Sunday is Dewey to Loma. Really looking forward to this weekend, it'll be a lot more fun than the ;) Goals for this weekend: determine where water access lies (but will they still be there in 2 weeks???); get a read on tire choice; figure out how to carry all the stuff needed for this race; get more acquainted with my new pack (review forthcoming). Those are the strategic goals...on the training front, the weekend will finalize my base 2 (no, not Friel speak...first base ended Jan23, I prefer a 3 month repeating cycle for much of the year) with CTL 140 and a 30 day rolling of 5000. I've been here twice before, but never felt this fresh - weird!
Pics, report, water source info to come. Stay tuned.