Charouleau Gap

Scott has been dreaming of a new bikepacking route here in southern Arizona. When route searching, the conversation usually goes like this on any give call.....

"How about we go up and over..." or "If we want to add more miles..."

It's good to have another person on board to bounce ideas off of. Otherwise, you are not really sure how your crazy idea is going to be taken by others. This weekend, the ride was up Charouleau Gap to the Biosphere. Climbing steep terrain was the slogan of the ride




Good, technical climbing



Hawks watching as we climbed




and climbed






After reaching the gap, we descended





Only to climb again and later descend.



This process repeated for about 1.5 hours. Worst part was that we could see what we were going to climb as we descended.

Ah yes, the look of pain. Check out Max's face. It has been about 6 months since our last epic ride.



A quick break before continuing on the suffer fest up super steep sections.



Max eloquently commented on what section of the road... "This is one of the steepest roads I have ever been on." Pictures never really do justice...but trust me when I say it was brake, step, brake, step on some sections.



If you look close, you can see some snow on Mt Lemmon. Weather is predicting more snow tonight.