Fire season is in full swing. I heard the group ride this saturday had to turn around at the general store and come back around the loop because the roads are burnin’ around mormon lake. They’re calling it the birdie fire and it’s licked 1500 acres so far (and is 0% contained right now, yee haw).

I got my taste today when I was pounding out a nice long mountain ride. I went up lower and upper hot shot, and then busted down to the top of schultz. The original plan was to head down the back side of elden and up little bear, but I got re-routed when I sensed the overwhelming smell of smoke as I crested at schultz tank. The whole place was hazy, and it was coming up off the backside of elden into schultz pass

I decided against the little elden descent up to little bear and instead climbed lower sunset to see what I could see from the top. No flames, and not even any plumes of smoke coming up. The whole pass was hazy from the fire, but it appeared to be contained. There isn’t anything on the coconino forest site about it, so i guess it wasn’t big enough to even warrant a name. I guess that’s a good thing.

Other than that, it’s been lots of long rides these last few days. I decided to forgo the group ride on saturday in favor of waterline to the inner basin. It was beautiful up there, and it rained while I was up there, so I got back down to schultz for some nice damp, empty trails on the way back home. Very nice.

Friday kicked everything off with a couple trips up weatherford trail (yeah, i climbed it twice, don’t ask why, sometimes you just feel it). I think I’m in the mode of “ride really hard, and see if this whole durango thing is a possibility”, so we’ll see how long I can keep the motivation up for the long rides, and how things are shaping up in the next couple weeks. I’ll let ya’ll know.

Keep the fire extinguisher close.