Thursday, September 28, 2006

Angelfire to Taos - Fall 2006 Cold & Muddy

Well, we did it again! Our now-annual ride of the South Boundry Trail between Taos and Angelfire, NM.



Dan, Ian & Paul hammered out this little juant. Last year in early October it was still hot, this year in September is was 25 degrees in the morning and we were greeted with 2 to 3 inches of awsome snow! Gotta love the weather at 10,000 ft.


This year our route started at the F.R. 76 Trailhead in Angelfire and we took the main trail (except for one bad turn and a nice job of "Route Finding" with map and compass) to Taos. It was 24 miles and took us 6 hours ;-)



It was considerably more effort than normal, riding in the snow which turned to slush, which in turn, turned to MUD ! Downhilling in the snow added a real nice extra bit of danger to whole affair ;-) But by the end of the ride in Taos, it was 70 and dry as a bone! We also made great use of some duct tape and chain lube for Ians split shifter cable at the start of the ride... McGiver has NOTHING on us!



Success ! Yea ! It was an AWSOME ride. We were quite muddy and stinkey at the end of it all... but not too stinkey to proceed directly to a pub for beers and eats. The waitress tried un-successfully to seat us AWAY from the other patrons ;-)

This has to be one of the greatest rides in the world, especially in the fall with the golden Aspens and snow capped peaks. We made it with no injuries, without getting lost and had a blast. Truly an AAS event!