March 19, 2018
Today we had a choice of three different routes of various distances and difficulty. The most difficult was a 90 miler that ended with the Gila Cliff Dwellings; The easiest a 25 miler direct shot to our next campground. In between was a 50 mile journey to Robert’s Lake. All ended up at the same place. While my mind wanted to do the 50 miler, my heart (quite literally) recommended the more direct route. Along the way I met Karl the Magnificent.
Karl was a cross country rider that my travelling companions, Annette, Jim and I met along the way. He was headed in the opposite direction towards San Diego. He was from Sweden and doing a self supported ride by himself. What made him magnificent in my eyes was that he had started his journey in Key West, Florida a brief 3 week ago! His average ride was around 130 miles a day with his longest day chewing up a glorious 160 miles! He expected to reach the Pacific within a week or less. Just when my travelling companions and I were beginning to think we were made of steel, along came Karl to show us what real steel looks like. Ah, to be young again.
Another feature of the shorter route was a view of the giant Santa Rita pit mine. Here they were creating an artificial tunnel across the highway to allow them to link up operations on both sides of the road without having to cross traffic. The mine is immense and claims to be the oldest operating pit mine in the USA. Just the tires on their ore haulers dwarfed our bicycles.
There is also an interesting history of a mining strike at the nearby Empire Zinc Mine back in 1951. After many months of the strike a court issued an injunction against the miners picketing the site. However, that injunction did not apply to the Ladies Auxiliary of Mine Worker’s Local 890. Withstanding threats of violence and other hardships, these women persevered and brought the mine owners to the table to negotiate a successful agreement.
It did not take very long to cover the short distance today so the six of us who took that route had time to relax and wait for the ACA van carrying our tents and street clothing. During that wait the step-mom of one of out leaders paid us her third visit of the trip bringing us gifts of beer, tortillas, wine and other goodies. I would like to say that we kept the beer cold and waited for our fellow riders on the longer route to get in before cracking open a cold one. Yes, I would like to be able to say that.
We had one rider who opted to follow the 90 mile route to the Gila Cliff Dwellings. He got an early start leaving before sunrise. Kevin is the real adventurer of our group and decided to make his trip alone when no one else felt like making this epic trek up and down the numerous, steep climbs to this national park. Unfortunately he ran low on battery power having used his headlight as a safety beacon on the long winding road to the dwellings. A few of us rode along with tour leader Kelly to backtrack his route to make sure he was O.K. We met him coming uphill from the park where he had spent a little too much time enjoying the cliff dwellings and he feared he would be travelling light-less in the dark well before reaching the campsite. He accepted our offer of a ride back to camp in the ACA van having accomplished the most epic ride so far in our trip.