Day 3
I should say...I slept well, except for getting dive bombed by mosquitos all night...WTF, at 8400ft???
Again, I planned to hold out for a breakfast burrito at the Grand Canyon Village and was up early, rolling around 6am. The downside to the early start was freezing temps dropping down some drainages. All my layers on including knit cap under my helmet and cold weather gloves and I was still freezing. I barely warmed up enough on the climbs to recover for the next downhill.
Proof of snow. The only white stuff I saw the whole trip. Unless you count frost I saw in some of the meadows.
By 730 it warmed up and I removed most layers.
One last climb to warm me up
I rolled into the GC village around 9am. Wow, busy - tourists everywhere kitted out in their finest new hiking apparel.
The deli was closed until 10 so I headed to the Roughrider Saloon which serves breakfast burritos in addition to the token breakfast muffin fare. I had to wait as they were out of burritos. While I waited a joking inquiry led to the discovery that yes they can serve cold refreshing beverages at this hour. The burritos were not as large as I hoped so I loaded up on 2 more to eat later.
Beer for breakfast, because it is past noon somewhere...
I wandered over to the back side of the Grand Canyon Lodge to check out the view. Wish I had taken my burrito over there as they have rows of chairs to lounge in
The main trail through the park is open to bikes. I saw no one else on it, everyone was too busy driving the mile from the campground to the village. It's nothing special but has a nice grade and hey, its trail in a National Park that we're allowed to ride! How progressive...
I made my way back to the North Kaibab Trailhead, where that trail (also designated the Arizona Tr) climbs out of the ditch. Across the road it continues from there north, bikes are allowed. This has been a grey area as park plans haven't shown bikes as officially allowed, but signage and some maps do show bikes as allowed. A park plan update now underway is proposing to make bike access on AZT north of the rim official, as well as on a couple other routes in the park. Hopefully this trend continues and the parks start to allow bikes in more places.
After a short fire road section the real singletrack begins, with a lot of climbing. After a few miles it transitions into a utility corridor and has plenty of downed trees. This combo makes the section not much worth riding. I moved 15-20 smaller trees off the trail, but tons will need a chainsaw.
Typical section before it turns into full utility corridor
There were nine miles of this to get to the North Rim entrance station. Then another 4-mile dirt road climb up to a fire lookout. Skies were dark by this point and threatening rain so I considered skipping the lookout. In the end I made the short detour and climbed the stairs.
I was glad I did. On the way up it started to snow! Then it turned to horizontal rain.
The cabin proved a convenient place to hole up for a while and gather my thoughts. Interesting graffiti inside. Abbey, apparently, manned the lookout tower for years and lived in this cabin.
View out the window
The day had gone a lot slower than expected thus far and it was now 3pm. With a 10 hour drive home waiting at the end of the trip I needed day 4 to be a short one, which meant a lot more miles of AZT today or possibly bailing on part of the ride. It sucks when you have just reached the section of trail you've been looking forward to most and have to consider bailing on some of it. As the rain continued self doubt creeped in and I was not liking my chances of getting far enough. There was 4.5 hours daylight left and 40 miles to Hwy 89. I needed to get close to there as the 27 miles from 89 to Stateline is said to take 6 hours. Not much I could do but refuel as I waited out the rain. After a few false stops it finally slowed, and I got going.
This next section of AZT is well known for gorgeous high altitude meadow riding.
But not on this day. I had hide out under trees a couple times as rain squalls passed through. The additional delays were not helping my concern over making distance
Soon enough though skies started to lighten up a bit and I was turning over some miles and getting into the rhythm - ride through meadow, hike a bike over ridge, descend, climb over downed tree, repeat.
There seemed to be a downed tree every time I picked up momentum. Not a huge number of them, but enough to be noticeable.
I also saw my first Kaibab squirrel. They are distinct with white tails and long pointy ears, and seemed more skittish (and harder to photograph) than regular squirrels.
The trail got better and better as I continued on, with a few nice aspen sections. And another downed tree every 5-10 mins.
Eventually I got to the East Rim viewpoint. A trail drops down toward threatening clouds, but I continued on to the AZT.
More meadows. For awhile it looked like the storm behind this hill was going to pummel me, but as the meadow turned the clouds seemed to change directions and faded back for the last time.
I still had more ridgelines to climb over as the meadow-HAB pattern continued. None of the climbs were long and they broke up the pace well so that I never got tired.
Getting close to sunset I came across this meadow with a small pond and some deer. One more 10 minute HAB followed, and at the top I stopped for my dinner burrito and got ready for night mode.
Last light
Beyond that high point the trail lead into a burn area and then an old road bed for a dozen+ miles of flat to gradual descent. The riding was just ok, and I doubt the views would be great so riding it at night was fine with me. It seemed to go on and on, and I figured if I could make it past the final HAB on the elevation profile I'd be in good shape for tomorrow. There were no big climbs after that so with a decent start time I should be fine.
The trail dropped into a final ravine before the HAB that was absolutely freezing cold. Climbing out of it I didn't find the tree cover I'd hoped for to provide wind protection but it was warm enough I just found a flat spot off the trail and crashed. At 50 miles I did well on the day considering the downed trees and rain delays. No mosquitos because of the breeze was a bonus.
