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Published: October 7th 2019
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Day 12 Mammoth to Young Leaving Mammoth our route started just off the main road in the middle of town. Onto single track gravel straight away with a bit everything. Sand, rocks, switchbacks & a washed out culvert with logs in it, This caught me out by approaching it too tentatively but no harm done. This Trail continued for a total of 24kms before we rode into Globe on seal It wasn’t until we were having a coffee & studying our maps in a Taco Bell we realised we had missed an expert section of the route over Pioneer Pass. Never mind that’s life.
Out of Globe we were soon into an section rated expert by the BDR. It was rocky, sandy and challenging but an enjoyable ride with spectacular views from our elevation of 1700m. We had a great view of the bright blue Roosevelt Lake.Altogether this secrion was close to 100kms. Descending to a lower elevation we had a 20km fast gravel road into Young in Pleasant Valley. This is true to name now, but we found later is the location of one of the bloodiest range wars in American history. Two families in the 1880s effectively
fought themselves to the point there was only one male member of one of the families left alive.
We had booked accommodation at The Dead Broke Ranch so named as a dead broke horse is a well broken horse that is older & steadier & so can be shot from. Clara our host took us on a tour of this amazing place that her & her 77 year old husband Robin have built themselves. We were staying in a cowboy cabin – basically a western themed house & very comfortable. This couple have built a full sized saloon with a selection of mounted game animals, Bison, Puma (mountain lion) Coyote, Bob Cat & many historic photos as well as a pool table. Through to the rear of the Saloon was a large living area, two bordello bedrooms & a cowboy bunkhouse all decorated in 19th century style. The crowning glory was a fully working shooting gallery which Robin had designed & constructed. As good as any professional fairground set-up & Keith & Bryan spent a hour later practising their shooting skills. Robin has even modified the pump action bb guns so they are repeat firers. (Jacinda would ban them)
Clara took us down the road to an original 1913 Country store they have recently bought after being shut since the 1960s. They are restoring this to original condition & doing a great job. Outside it still has two original hand pump operated petrol pumps. Out the back the previous owners had build a series of concrete cool9 stores which are connected to the store by a tunnel. Apparently when cleaning this area out Clara found all sorts of historic treasures including old $20 notes, newspaper cuttings & tax returns from a previous owner going back to early 20
th century. Along with all this they also got a cowboy cabin which they have refurbished in correct style, plus a small cottage where a previous owner reared 7 children, various farm implements, trucks etc.
Dinner in a nearby diner & then a pool tournament in the saloon. 260kms today.
Day 13 Young to Winona. Out of Young we were soon back on the route climbing on an easy gravel road through a National Park. Quite a lot of traffic (Sunday) mainly vehicles towing trailers with side by sides to ride the trails. Some hunters no
doubt leaving from the many trail heads to shoot Turkeys, Deer, Elk, Bear or even a type of Wild Pig known as Javelina. This is all strictly controlled by a tag system which limits who can shoot what & how many. Continuing on this gravel road we went through the Mogollon Rim area where there was a sheer drop of some hundreds of metres. There is a trail called the Military Sinkhole on the Mogollon rim where we stopped to take in the view & get some photos. This trail drops or rises some 300m depending if you start at the top or the bottom.
Continuing on the route it turned off onto very rocky trail which was challenging & quite tiring. This was not marked as expert but the consensus was it was harder than yesterdays which was. During this section we came across another rider doing the BDR on a KTM 1290. He was riding with a friend on a BMW1250 but he had lst him. We hadn't seen him so assume he decided to opt for sealed roads. Around 30kms of this including a small section of 10kms which was marked as expert lead us to
the almost non existent town of Winona which was the end of today’s route. From here we rode Route 66 into Flagstaff to our accommodation.
We rode nearly the whole of today above 2000m & the temperature is noticeably cooler in Flagstaff. Around 280kms today.
For anybody interested in following our route on our satellite tracking device - copy & paste this address into your browser.
http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=01I04hQtbMF1qKugWLIqTCDNxbuxL2jQO
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