had a stellar ride yesterday!

yesterday the rain actually held off on the peaks long enough to actually get in a really great ride! me, denise and the dogs took off from sunset trailhead about 9am and started heading up climb 3. we saw the new lightning caused fire the crossed climb 3, and checked out the fire line - great new trail section! check it out! "trail 3." there. i called it. trail conditions were about as good as it gets. super wet and tacky, with great ferns. alot of the old flowers have faded into seed pods, but new ones are taking their place; the yellow cut leaf cone flowers are really kickin' it in the drainages! also white richardson's geraniums, tiny yellow potetilla hippiana, yarrow and 4 o'clocks. gotta get some pics of our yard, it is going off. anyway: from the top of climb 3 we headed down sunset to upper brookbank, where we saw the only other person of the day, a cat on one of those $500.00 redline monocogs {i wish they had those when i started mountain biking, what a concept! a cheap bike that actually works!} we saw as many snakes and deer as we saw humans: one each. sooo....i actually totally cleaned upper brookbank for the first time, totally rolled it. it was sweet. here's a great view of mt. aggasiz from the trail. it's the second highest peak in arizona at 12,356 feet. in this view it obscures the highest peak in arizona, mt. humphreys which clocks in at 12,633 feet. we connected over to lower weinie walk, just flying, buffed and packed turns mixed with smokin' straight-a-ways. at the bottom of little gnarly we went left to schultz creek so the dogs could wallow in the water from all the recent rains. they love getting wet and smelling all the critters that come down to drink. then we just circled around back to the parking lot to finish the ride just as the first thunder boomers were sounding off over the san francisco peaks. would have ridden a little longer, but i had to get home to meet jim stein of j.a. stein tool company. he makes some of the most intuitive, handy, durable bike tools out there, and i did a small stint working for him in the mid 90's and have known him since my late teens. i bought his home-made frame jig from him that he built in the 70's and built my first 30 frames on it. i still have it! anyway, he's thinking about getting back into building some more bikes, and wanted to see my setup. that would be pretty cool! thanks for reading! it inspires me to get out and do more to think that you all actually find my life interesting! later for now, gonna go out and finish jeff's bike today, i'll post pics when she's all polished up, steve.