Red burning desert

10.-23.4.2024

The plane from Chile landed in Phoenix, Arizona. It was nice to get to a western country, just like in Finland, with a high standard of living after a long time. Still, everything was very different and it caused a culture shock. People looked like Hollywood movie stars and behaved just as lively.

It's like people here lack some sort of filter in their brains when they speak out loud very openly what they think. However, the people I met were very polite and cheerful almost always. However, nothing in the culture was new, because I have lived this all in my life through movies and the internet. It was a shock that people actually are the same in real life.

I cycled from the airport along the quiet streets to the airbnb apartment in Tempe city. It is part of the Phoenix metropolitan area with a population of 4.8 million. However, the city was mostly quiet blocks of single-family homes and townhouses. There were robot taxis on the streets and I watched people get into the back seats of driverless electric cars.

I used the buses myself. I soon found out that buses here are mainly a way for second class citizens to get around. Average citizens did not get on the buses. The whole country is built on transport of private cars.

Exhausted from cycling in Patagonia, I took a couple of days of rest here and wondered how the big world was going. I then cycled to the next lodge in the neighboring Scottsdale neighborhood. There were only single-family houses during the 30-kilometer distance. Everyone wanted to live in the city in a detached house.

I arrived at the overnight place booked through Warmshower. Warmshower is a kind of couchsurfing peer-to-peer service that is only for cyclists and no money changes hands. This is a great way to get inside homes to see and hear how local life goes.

When I approached the address, the host was already on the street to welcome me. Once inside, I got to know the whole family of four. They had long ago become interested in cycling and had done several cycling trips of a few weeks around the world. They were very interested in my trip and it was very nice to share experiences with like-minded people on both sides.

For dinner, the hostess prepared BBQ seasoned grilled chicken. I was able to choose my own beer from a huge selection, which had its own refrigerator. This combination of food and drink strongly reminded me of Finnish Midsummer party.

Boys of elementary school age were more interested in football than in tourism. They would take turns playing soccer in the backyard and then going inside to play soccer on the game console, over and over again.

After cycling in South America, I was also very happy to get to an English-speaking country. However, communicating with the Americans turned out to be surprisingly difficult. I understood the local people's speech well, but my own speech faltered when they didn't understand some of my words at all if I didn't pronounce them precisely correct. The language barrier was surprisingly high at first, but it gradually eased.

I never managed to pronounce some individual words so accurately that the Americans would have understood them immediately. E.g. Volcano and Bearspray. With non-native speakers, on the other hand, there have been extremely rare situations where the conversation would be interrupted when the pronunciation is a little off. They can still understand the words.

The American homes where I now got to stay were very luxurious and comfortable after the simple and ramshackle houses of Patagonia. The homes here resembled a lot of Finnish homes, but everything is even more luxurious. The living standards are very high.

Everything is bigger here too. The houses are huge, the milk cans are 3.8 liters in size, the coffee in 1.2 kg packages. Even the refrigerators were at least double the size compared to Finnish refrigerators.

All the shopping here was very expensive and a lot of money was spent on groceries alone. However, I was happy that I got value for money. Patagonia was surprisingly expensive for tourists, and there was sometimes the feeling that you were paying for half of nothing, or that you didn't even get something you needed with the money. Accommodations in relation to their poor quality were insanely expensive. Here in America, though, it's so expensive that I can't afford lodgings. So there's going to be a lot of camping, but i like it.

In the morning I finally started the trip to the bike trails. Phoenix is built on the desert, so from my point of view, I could get to exotic nature as soon as I cycled out of the city. Now on the first day I cycled to the Sonora desert. The narrow and winding well-rolling paths were very fun to cycle between cacti and bushes. The place resembled very clearly cartoon TV shows. Here is only sand, iconic-looking big cacti and bushes. Simple as that.

I suddenly did emergency braking. A huge rattlesnake was crossing the path. It stopped for a moment in the middle of the path to observe me and then continued on its way.

The temperature was scorching, over 30 degrees. It was only April, but the temperatures were still painful. In the middle of summer, there is no more coming here, because the temperatures even rise to dangerous readings.

I arrived at the other side of the desert after a couple of hours. Now high sandstone cliffs appeared in the landscape. I biked to a states free campground for the night. Now it was the weekend and the foresty place on the river bank had attracted a few other groups. I was desperately trying to fall asleep when the mountainwall on the opposite shore was being shot with revolvers next to me.

I woke up late in the morning and the smell of grilling reached my nose. The neighbors were already preparing barbecue food and some were fishing in small rubber boats. They made a lot of noise. There were no fish, but at least it was fun for them.

Itinerary plan

Now being here in the US, my intention was to ride mostly the Western Wildlands Mountainbike-route all the way to Canada. The route runs along the Rocky Mountains, across the entire country. This Midwest of the United States is the Wild West region for both history and movies.

The Western Wildlands I chose is an alternative route to the world's most famous mountain bike route called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. These two routes run fairly close to each other across the country. I chose this much lesser known route because it goes through more remote areas and the scenery has been praised for being better. This route is also more challenging because it is more technical to drive on bad roads and paths. There are also much more elevation meters. There are also fewer towns and villages and the route therefore requires more planning in terms of food and drinking water. All of these features only made this route seem like a more exciting and memorable choice for me.

To get to this ultra-long route, I initially combined two separate bikepacking.com routes. At the northernmost point of the first route, I camped on the edge of the village. In the evening, the jackals howled mightily at the end of the day. The sound was so loud that the herd must have been very large.

Getting to the other route was not as straightforward as I had imagined. I tried to get off the highway onto two different dirt roads, but locked gates, threatening no-go signs and rude people forced me to turn back. People defended their land here like countries defend their self.

I then took a detour on the asphalt road to next bike route.

I now reached the famous Arizona trail. The path went up a very steep slope to the Mingus mountain to 2300 meters and sometimes I needed push the bike. There was still some snow up there from the winter, but the temperature was very summery and pleasant.

I pitched the tent on top of the mountain in the coniferous forest. The peak was as gentle as a fell. It was exciting to stay here because I had never stayed at such a high altitude overnight. In the evening, I felt my head squeeze a little, like a symptom of a high altitude after a heavy cycling. However, it soon passed.

In the morning I rolled to the other side of the mountain to Cottonwood, a small town. The path was very narrow on the steep northern slope of the mountain and partially covered with snow. It didn't really have the charm of speed, when I had to be careful not to drift into a sudden sharp drop.

In the city, I enjoyed the traditional food of this country, a hamburger meal, for lunch. I had to spend a good 30 dollars on it in a quality place, but it's only once you go on vacation here, so you should enjoy it once in a while.

My target travel budget of 15 € per day for food and accommodation was quite impossible here. It will at least double, but will hopefully level off later in the low-cost countries.

Dead Horse Ranch

Satisfied, I pedaled out of the city and the route immediately headed to the national parks.

For $3 I could enter the Dead Horse Ranch National Park.

Story of the name:

A long time ago, a family came to town intending to buy a ranch. First time they looked the property, there was a dead horse lying on the field. After looking at a number of properties, the parents asked from their children's which one they liked the best?

"The one with the dead horse".

So they bought it and the ranch was named by children.

The terrain in this region was a rocky and hilly sandy desert. The mini-canyons hollowed out by water and wind, were spectacular. The sand now turned brick red. It was even hotter here. It seemed that the dark red sand absorbed more of the sun's heat radiation.

It was reasonable to leave early every morning and have a siesta during the hottest hours of the day, if I happened to find places in the shade. When the sun went down at six it was more tolerable again.

I drank as much water as my stomach could absorb every day. I mixed salt in the water and also enjoyed the salt raw straight from the jar.

Fortunately, not all days were equally hot and I was able to recover a little from the previous day's heat. It felt odd to drink as much as possible right from the morning, even though it was a bit chilly. Later in the day, sweating while cycling in the scorching sun was just so annoying that the stomach's capacity of absorbing couldn't keep up.

On several days, even 5 liters of liquid was not enough, and it took a long time to recover from the lack of liquid until the next day. To replace the fluid and salt lost, I relied solely on my feelings, which I had developed during a long endurance sports career. Many skills already been very useful in my journey regarding many different things.

The next destination was Red Rocks National Park, on the foothills of Sedona. Everything was now, as the name suggests, red. The sandstone cliffs were really fun to ride on a mountain bike.

The rough stone surface was like sandpaper and had a really good grip on the tires. However, the trails were moderately technical and I had to constantly push the bike over small hills, no more than a few meters high. The hills were steep and bumpy. It was often only possible to ride them downhill, and uphills were an impossible place for my rigid and heavy mountain bike.

On two days, I reached just over 30 km per day, which was a bit frustrating. However, driving on curvy red stones had been really pleasure, so it was not worth staring at the bike computer here.

When I arrived at the parking lot at the other end of the trail in Sedona a couple of days later, the bikers driving the RV immediately asked if I needed something: beer, water, food, anything else? People are very friendly here.

The Sedona rocks were very interesting and strange. The sand stone had formed into the soft-looking tires of a Michelin man, and there were hundreds of them on top of each other. The mountains formed by rings of columns rose to hundreds of meters in height. These mountains were everywhere.

Due to these natural wonders, this place has been declared as one of the spiritual energy points of the world. A popular place for weddings as well. I saw even three weddings in one day.

I drove out of town for the evening to look for a place to camp. Staying in the cities is not an option for my wallet, as the cheapest option even in the campsites is almost $50. Peoples don't even camp here, the campsites are made for RV:s. So far, I have seen a lot of insanely huge rigged vehicles. Typically, a mobile home is towed behind a giant pick-up truck. Then a small SUV is towed behind it, for day trips.

Now leaving town I finally got to join my Western Wildlands route.

A really bumpy and rocky dirt road rises its way up towards the mountain pass. The evening was already getting dark fast and a tent spot had to be found as soon as possible. I noticed just before dark that a small secluded hiking trail branched off the driveway. There was a sign on the trail saying that it has been taken out of use because the route is currently impassable and unmaintained. However, the trail head was excellent, so I pushed the bike along it for a while until I found a flat spot that was hidden from the road. I set up the camp right on the trail to sleep right under the stars, Cowboy camping style, without a tent. It was so nice to look at the great mountain scenery and the clear starry sky, and I saved myself the time of setting up and packing the tent.

The sunsets here in Arizona are truly beautiful. So are sunrises. The sky's pastel, pink and blue colors are even depicted on car license plates.

In the morning I drove along a nice mountain road towards Flagstaff. I had now climbed to 2000 meters above sea level after leaving Phoenix. Here the temperatures were much cooler and more pleasant. The heat no longer unbearable.

I reached the city in good time, so now was a good time to look for a place to camp and spend some relaxing time in the afternoon before going to bed. In fact, camping in the wild is often quite a headache here in the US. It is allowed but very complicated depending on where you are.

Here in Arizona there is e.g. state land, government land, private land, national forest and national parks. There is no way to distinguish these areas on the spot, but you have to check the owner of each plot of land and the rules for camping on many different maps.

I ended up camping on state land this time, which is allowed here. I only found out later that I should have paid an annual fee for camping on Arizona-owned land. Even the exhaustingly long 80-page user manual of my bike route failed to mention it.

The job is sometimes so difficult that I often resort to "stealth camping", roughly translated into secret or hidden camping. In Finland, this is completely unnecessary, but it can still be exciting.

I consider such an overnight stay to be successful if no one notices it beforehand or afterwards, and there are no traces left in nature. A cyclist on the road just disappears in the evening and reappears on the road in the morning. When you combine this with the epic nature seen from the tent door, such as a great sunset, mountains, waterfall, etc. so it's a amazing experience.

Fortunately, most of the time the route map has tent sites marked, so it is less often necessary to bother with researching the rules of each state.

In the morning I drove from the outskirts of the city to downtown Flagstaff. The city is a world famous place for high-altitude training for athletes, and I saw Norwegian runners jogging. I also realized here that Route 66, the country's most legendary road, runs through the city. Now I had the opportunity to pedal that road for a while.

I went to practice food tourism at Diablo Burger, which is the city's most famous burger place. In these traditional food places, you can see people in all ages. I did the grocery shopping for a few days and then drove out of town to the mountains in the evening to look for a place to camp.

The place I found in the remote coniferous forest was quite comfortable, so I spent a whole day of rest here, at the same time acclimatizing to the high altitude. The next morning I set off.

From Flagstaff, there is a views to the beautiful snow-capped mountains called San Francisco peaks, at the foot of which the city is also located.

Now I started pedaling up towards these mountains. There was no need to look for adventure anymore, it had found me.