The Land of Enchantment has many great things going for it. One of my favorites is that you can get out and ride on dirt almost year round. Sure there are days when there is too much snow or mud for even the hardcore, but honestly if you want to ride, it is just a matter of waiting a few days so as the weather changes. Case and point--just last week NM was in a deep freeze, much like the rest of the country. ABQ had highs in the 20's and the lows were single digits. But yesterday that all changed. High of 50 degrees and no wind. That being the case, Sira and I hit up White Mesa for a spin. Everytime I head out there, I am amazed at how cool these trails are. As one of my CO buddies stated after riding White Mesa, "That definitely is one of the top 5 rides I have ever ridden!"
Want more info on White Mesa, check out the New Mexico Endurance Series. Their site has detailed info for the area!
Thanks to fellow trail user, Jim, for passing along a picture of myself, as well as to NMES and panchowonton for their pics.
I will finish with this:
"Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. He is distinguished from animals by his freedom to do evil or to do good and to walk the high road of beauty or tread the low road of ugly degeneracy.
Martin Luther King, Jr., The Measures of Man, 1959.
4 comments:
Those are some fun rides indeed. If you ever get a chance to learn the San Yisdro Trials Area accross NM 550, you can hook both this and White Mesa up in a day for a fun winter epic.
Called Red Mesa correct? Where do I catch it??
Yeah Red Mesa is what some call it. As you drive past San Ysidro on the way to Durango, look for a Truck Weighing Station (no buildings, just an asphalt pull out) on your right hand side. Immediately after that, there is a BLM Parking Lot that says San Yisdro Trials Area. Park there and ride the dirt road up a mile or so and look for a motorcycle rampover a fence on your left - the left side is the singletrack network - eventually you will work yourself over to the right hand side of that dirt road and that is the "red mesa" of solid NM slickroakc - which isn't really all that slick. Nothing is defined out there and you can make it up as you go along...although there are rock cairns to follow.
The best thing to do is tire yourself out from riding White Mesa and pedal over her for a couple of hours of exploring. It's slow moving trchnical stuff and drives xc types crazy starting out fresh.
The old and original San Ysidro Dirty Century actually includes this, but it was too hard to communicate the course....and the one year that I marked it, the motorcycle guys went ballistic.
thanks. Sounds like you are hitting that trail tomorrow. I might have to tag along.
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