Cottonwood trails
Just down the highway from Sedona is a smaller town called Cottonwood. Dead Horse Ranch State Park had a loop of around 20 miles of singletrack that we mapped out to ride. Sundays in Sedona are pretty busy so we headed to Cottonwood for our singletrack fix. Our loop took us on trails called Rusty Bucket, Lime Kiln, Thumper, Bones, Lower Raptor and Upper Raptor. Thumper and Rusty Bucket had a lot of fun little technical sections and I liked Bones and Raptor for their more remote feel. There’s only about a day’s worth of riding here but it was fun.
Schnebly/Munds Wagon/Huckaby/Jim Thompson/Javelina Loop
I’ve had my eye on this mountain bike loop for the last 2 weeks. The water levels in Oak Creek had me a little concerned after the spring rains and snow the area received. After waiting two weeks we decided to give it a go. The loop is sonewhere around 18 miles and probably around 3000′ of climbing…our recording didn’t capture it all.
The climb up Schnebly Hill is pretty gradual on a rough dirt road and I found we were able to go faster than the Pink Jeep tours that use this road. At the top we caught our breath and then dropped into Munds Wagon Trail.
Munds Wagon is a chunky rock single track at the top that winds in and out of a slick rock wash with plenty of black diamond trail riding. We hooked up to the Huckaby Trail which offers views of Oak Creek way below the cliff. This trail also is for expert riders and probably not for those squeamish about riding along the side of an exposed hill. At the very bottom after a hike a bike through boulders and crossing a creek, we climbed up to Midgley Bridge Overlook. We snapped a few pictures and continued on Jim Thompson Trail.
This section of trail winds around the mountain with fairly gradual rolling hills and nothing too technical. The last part of our day was a blast down Javelina Trail followed by a short road section back to our car. We made it!
As a reward, we treated ourselves to a new beer – Madura Brown Ale from Cigar City Brewing. It’s higher in alcohol than most browns and it was definitely more roasty then most as well. Overall, I liked it.
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