Mountain Biking in Flagstaff

Jeff

I did a solo ride up Mount Elden the week before our big Waterline Road ride to see how the foliage was coming along. It was a typical late-season ride: powering up the 2000 foot climb on the steep Lookout Road, while knowing that by next April it will be a beastly, lung-busting nightmare.

8300' - Lookout Road

About halfway up Elden, the aspens were not quite at peak color, but made a nice show anyway.

8500' - Lookout Road

An old campaigner keeps watch over a spectacular view. This is looking west, with the Dry Lake Hills visible in the background, and Bill Williams mountain on the horizon, about 40 miles away.

9100' - Elden Summit

I rode out the various road spurs on the summit and captured this view of the eastern end of Flagstaff and the Continental country club area. Route 66, the BNSF fracks, and I-40 divide the image, running left to right at center.

9050' - Sunset Trail

Looking east from the very top section of the Sunset Trail, one can see the some of Doney Park area NE of Flagstaff, assorted cinder cones, and plenty of aspens turning gold on the flank of Mount Elden. This is right in the middle of the damage done by the 1977 Radio Fire; 25 years later, the aspens are recovering.

9050' - Sunset Trail

Here's the Sunset Trail, a glorious ride that goes from the summit of Elden across its famous "Organ donor" cliffside segment, down through a harrowing big-boulder set of switchbacks to a montane meadow, back up over a ridge, and finally down a screaming descent to Schultz Tank. It's a marvelous ride, but sadly, I had to get back home quickly this day, so after all that climbing I could only take Sunset down to the saddle at the Upper Oldham junction, and then express back down the Lookout Road and home. But there are few better times of year in Flagstaff than early October, as this shot shows, taken just a short way down Sunset from the photo above, looking north toward the Peaks.

This ride, by the way, is the one on which I snapped several shots of the summit of Elden and stitched them together to make the panorama used for the banner image on the home page of this site.

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