alia176
SILVER Star
- Thread starter
- #121
Well, it was a great trip as always and you couldn't have asked for a better weather. QuantumKiwi (Alex) showed up around 2am at Granite Gap and we showed up around 11pm Wed night. BenzFanatical (Chris), Pappy (Pappy) & Poupon (Larry) were already there enjoying the sun set.
I swear, we should rename this trip to WalmartBDR because that's what we did every day after breaking camp. Being the first camping trip for some of us meant that we forgot things or needed things for essentials, like Margaritas. Thurs morning found us at the Walmart in Douglas, AZ and eventually, we met up with Maynster (Kelly) and mom at Bisbee, AZ. Bisbee is a cool little town with old time stuff to check out. After picking up Kelly, we scooted over to the Coronodo National Memorial and grabbed Liveoak (Chris) and hit the trail. As we gained elevation, the scenery and vegetation changed as usual. Southern AZ is a beautiful place with several different species of Cacti and our resident botanist, Pappy, tried his best to educate the group on what we were seeing.
We lost Kelley and mom on saturday morning and Chris on Sat afternoon. They both had places to go and were far from home. Sat evening we lost Chris due to family issues so he high tailed it to Gallup. Sunday morning we got up and headed to the Mogollon rim visitor center but it was closed. The entire rim was closed due to snow, just a guess. Sat night, the temps got down to mid 20s, the coldest temp on this trip at 5500' elev. By the time we hit the visitor center, we saw snow in places and the air temp was quite brisk. Larry, Alex, Jessica and I headed into Payson, AZ to go check it out and grab some coffee.
On the way home we hit nasty traffic on I-40 at the AZ/NM border and of course weather. We hit another construction slow down near Laguna but we avoided it by taking frontage road and what was an abandoned asphalt road. The few cars that were avoiding the delays were playing dodge the giant pot holes. Suddenly the road ended and turned into a quagmire of mud and ruts for about 300 yards. The cars were having a heck of a time but we all made it and caught up to hwy 6 which dumped us back on to I-40.
I'm looking forward to continuing this trip the next time. The group got along well and brought something to the mix.
Link to my album AZBDR trail run with HDC March 2019
Here's Kelley (turned away from camera) and Alex, who is wearing shorts at around 45º air temp!
Chris and Pappy's bromance......
The gang at the Coffee Grounds coffee shop in Payson. A very nice, local neighborhood place to chill out.
I swear, we should rename this trip to WalmartBDR because that's what we did every day after breaking camp. Being the first camping trip for some of us meant that we forgot things or needed things for essentials, like Margaritas. Thurs morning found us at the Walmart in Douglas, AZ and eventually, we met up with Maynster (Kelly) and mom at Bisbee, AZ. Bisbee is a cool little town with old time stuff to check out. After picking up Kelly, we scooted over to the Coronodo National Memorial and grabbed Liveoak (Chris) and hit the trail. As we gained elevation, the scenery and vegetation changed as usual. Southern AZ is a beautiful place with several different species of Cacti and our resident botanist, Pappy, tried his best to educate the group on what we were seeing.
We lost Kelley and mom on saturday morning and Chris on Sat afternoon. They both had places to go and were far from home. Sat evening we lost Chris due to family issues so he high tailed it to Gallup. Sunday morning we got up and headed to the Mogollon rim visitor center but it was closed. The entire rim was closed due to snow, just a guess. Sat night, the temps got down to mid 20s, the coldest temp on this trip at 5500' elev. By the time we hit the visitor center, we saw snow in places and the air temp was quite brisk. Larry, Alex, Jessica and I headed into Payson, AZ to go check it out and grab some coffee.
On the way home we hit nasty traffic on I-40 at the AZ/NM border and of course weather. We hit another construction slow down near Laguna but we avoided it by taking frontage road and what was an abandoned asphalt road. The few cars that were avoiding the delays were playing dodge the giant pot holes. Suddenly the road ended and turned into a quagmire of mud and ruts for about 300 yards. The cars were having a heck of a time but we all made it and caught up to hwy 6 which dumped us back on to I-40.
I'm looking forward to continuing this trip the next time. The group got along well and brought something to the mix.
Link to my album AZBDR trail run with HDC March 2019
Here's Kelley (turned away from camera) and Alex, who is wearing shorts at around 45º air temp!
Chris and Pappy's bromance......
The gang at the Coffee Grounds coffee shop in Payson. A very nice, local neighborhood place to chill out.
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. I’ll add a few from after. 
