SAUER: Sonoran Ultra Endurance Ride - Day 5 - Ironwood Forest and Saguaro National Park
Date: March 11, 2025
86.7 Miles
4,274 Feet of Gain
Camp Saguaro in the Avra Foothills to Tucson, AZ
I set my alarm the night before for 5:30 am with the goal of rolling out by 6 under star-studded spring skies to complete a nearly 90 mile day and finish. Camp was quiet when I pedaled onto the state highway shoulder. No cars carried by. The air was crisp but didn't dip below freezing. I watched the stars blink out into the coming blue of day just as the road ended right at Ironwood Forest National Monument. I was particularly excited about today's riding having never explored this National Monument that's been on my radar for years. The SAUER's path looked to take a bisecting direction across the entire Park, and I planned to enjoy every inch of it. I parked my bike in front of the Monument's entrance sign just as the sulfur orange glow of sunrise dramatically began searing the horizon. It was absolutely beautiful.
I quickly got on the bike and started riding across the dusty doubletrack tracing a crease westwards into the more remote backcountry of Ironwood Forest NM. I don’t know if it was the slant of light at dawn combined with the recent rain, but the entire place just seemed more green than any other portion of the route I had biked through over the past few days. It lit me up and gave me the push I needed to sprawl my thoughts joyfully about the place. I was moving quick, both for the miles I needed to cover today, and for the fact that an intense red flag wind advisory was set to start in a few hours. The winds were slated to come from the southwest. My goal was to head south and west this morning, then turn before the winds arrived to time a perfect tailwind north through the rest of the Monument.
But for now, I was just content to absorb the passing vegetation golden and green-washed in the dawn spreading over the desert. Ironwood trees grew thickly - a few kitted out in their hallmark blooms. Then, the desert thornscrub got dense. Riotous saguaros spread their arms upwards through the mid-canopy of nurse trees. The doubletrack swerved and flowed across the Sonoran floor quick and timely. I noted to myself that this passage through Ironwood Forest NM was one of my favorite parts of the entire SAUER. Ocotillo blooms on the tips of spined hosts crossed the road. Chollas caught the sun's rays. I felt energized and strong.
And faster than I reckoned, I was at the far southwest corner of the National Monument. This was fortunate because the first gusts of the coming wind advisory were starting to huff in sprays of sand and dust. The smooth doubletrack crossed red rock before turning on a berm northward in the Roskruge Mountains. This marked the end of smooth dirt for some time as the road decayed into a stream of babyhead rocks. I tucked my camera away and spent most of the next hour or two concentrated on picking lines amongst the pummeling stone corridor. Domed mountains sagged around me amid a boulderscape punctuated by cacti. Several developed ranching spots also popped up; surprisingly, there were several well-filled cattle water tanks all along this section making hydration convenient. Despite the chunky surface, that strong SW tailwind picked up into a steady current that pressed against my back and sped me across the desert foothills. I descended from the mountains into the valleys below. I noted several instances of saguaros topped flat but growing prickly pear cacti from their apex. It turns out that the combination of topping by rot and woodpeckers combined with roosting white-winged doves defecating prickly pear seeds contributes to this phenomenon. I snapped some photos of the cool plant-on-plant growth and then continued pedaling north.
The sound of low aircraft kept reaching my ears as I was riding. I finally turned and sourced the sound as a military tanker swung low and wide across the basin. The road smoothed out. I absolutely flew across the desert floor with the strong consistent tailwind pushing me. I approached a paved highway where the SAUER shortly joined its shoulder before reentering the desert on doubletrack weaving between thornscrub. The large and active Silver Bell Mine dominated the landscape to my west - the strip-mined mountains brazen against the blue sky. Heat settled across the Earth, and I baked in it with pleasure. A train of ATVs came down the dirt road in the opposite direction. They stopped to check on me before we continued in our opposing paths.
Suddenly, the dirt road dipped east and I was on a wide graded surface heading south. But this change in directly corresponded to facing the massive headwind that had let me sail all morning. I lowered my head, got as aerodynamic as I could, and just gritted my teeth into the path of air resistance. Although the road was wide, it was full of washboard making the smashing headwind all the more difficult. I crawled, just absolutely crawled across Avra Valley. It took a long time to cover what should have been flat and fast until I wheeled into the 7-11 and Dollar General just off N. Trico Road. I parked my bike in the leeward side of the building, went in for a resupply, and came out to sit on the sidewalk next to my bike in the windbreak. I relished the calm afforded by the building. I got ready to go and braced myself for the headwind once more. I bicycled the road shoulder for miles and miles across the broad desert flatlands, all the while the wind kept me laughably slow. Finally, I made to turn east where the crosswind was a better player as I sped more earnestly across doubletrack through the heart of Picture Rocks. The area was a large swath of silt basin surface rolling through a rural community filled with ranches and homesteads.
My ride through the Picture Rocks was mostly along a powerline right-of-way that shot me past property boundaries where people four-wheeled, did ammo practice, and left a good amount of refuse. Eventually, the siltly doubletrack firmed up as the community became more dense. I found myself bicycling through Sonoran neighborhoods baking in the heat of the day. Indeed, I found a tree hanging shade on the road off a home's property and stopped for a long rest to cool down, eat snacks, and drink water. I headed south once more into the headwind along paved S. Sandario Road.
I approached the boundary of Saguaro National Park - West. This felt triumphant. Saguaro NP presented the last large public land area SAUER traveled through and the route's path aimed to take me someplace I had never explored before in the Park. Sweat from the high temperatures dripped down my back, but I was filled with pure excitement for where I was biking. I snapped a photo my bike at the entrance sign and immediately let anticipation carry me blindly up a dirt road and a wrong turn off-route. I climbed and climbed just enjoying the views and taking photos until I realized I my GPX had disappeared. I laughed at my mistake and rode downhill back to the road where I rode the pavement shoulder once more until I made the proper turn to climb up Hohokam Road. The west district of the National Park is thick with its namesake thornscrub. The density of the biodiversity made me get off my bike and take photos over and over. I was thrilled to be riding a dirt road through a slice of the area. The craggy peaks around me accented the columnar cacti standing everywhere.
The SAUER continued to climb until the dirt road gave out at the Ez-Kim-In-Zin Picnic Area. Here, motorized traffic were stopped by a gate across the wash. Foot and bicycle travel could continue down the desert sand out of the Park. I chose a line, picked up speed, and barreled into the thick sand ahead. The downhill was anything but fast. The sand alternated between deep and shallow leaving my wheels spinning purposefully or swimming to stay up. I found the landscape enthralling as I passed hillsides with saguaro studs jutting into the sky. I hit Picture Rocks Road and joined the busy pavement up to Contzen Pass. There, I stared into the heart of downtown Tucson while the profiled mass of the Santa Catalina Mountains took up the skyline. I felt a fire of accomplishment and such zest to be out here riding and now so close to the end. Little remained of the route but something like 17 miles. It was now mid-afternoon and finishing in daylight seemed within reach.
How wrong I was. I knew ahead lay something called the Gasline Ramble - a right-of-way doubletrack utility easement that cut straight from the exurbs into downtown Tucson. Little did I know this section would prove to be the hardest section of the whole route - a last challenge to dig deep before finishing. But now I sat at the pass feeling all alive with possibility. I pedaled fast and steep down the shoulder of the incredibly busy road into a smattering of neighborhoods on the fringes of the city where a sudden turn brought me to the start of the Gas Line Road. The road looked innocuous enough and I turned onto it with gusto. But it quickly degraded into a track chock full of babyhead rocks and sunken ruts that required careful line-finding. That, and like any utility road, it spent no time keeping to the contours of the land but instead cut straight up-and-down every steep gully and wash. Parts were so inclined and rocky that I walked and struggled to push my bike up and down the cuts to the landscape. It became a hellacious crawl. I brawled the road but it brawled right back as I crossed through random neighborhoods, rode across parking lots, cut through backyards, and questioned at times whether I was on an actual track at all. But it also afforded glimpses of the city skyline and the rosy-colored sky island range now colored in late afternoon light. I slowed to a pace where I covered 13 miles in 2.5 hours - and trust me, it was a full body workout to the point that I drained all my water and just dug deep to get to the finish.
Just as true evening dark and deep crept over it all, I burst through the last push of the Gasline to stumble into an apartment parking lot just outside "A" Mountain downtown. The feeling of pure relief I felt was unlike any other. I turned on my bike lights and was swept to the urban interior on bike lanes smooth and gorgeous. I biked up through the middle of downtown amid headlights and crowds out for the evening. It felt surreal. And just like that, I rounded some bends and arrived at Presta Coffee. Cheers erupted as Dex, Josh, Steph and their respective partners came out to greet me. I hollered back and skidded to a stop - last finisher in and damn alive with the beauty of the route. Everyone urged me to grab a seat while they presented food, drinks, and conversation that flowed about the route and experience. I felt such victory in that moment - all alive with the feel of accomplishment amid challenge in the landscape. As soon as the conversation wrapped up, I packed up my bike, got my car from the Parking Garage downtown, went to Time Market for a true dinner, and then made my way to my hotel for a well-earned rest.
