The Key to Mingus

 The mention of Mingus Mtn. often brings shivers down my spine. The hike-a-bike up the north slope during the Coco250 still ranks as one of the most soul crushing efforts I've done. Twice. For some dumb reason a third will happen in a couple of weeks, but I digress. This time around we'd be climbing Mingus from the south, not cresting it, but sideswiping it on forest roads. This route is part of the new AZ1000 route and was a bit of an unknown to me.

My friend, Tara, had expressed interest in tagging along on my next adventure ride. I thought this would be a good fit for her in spite of the disclaimer about never riding most of the route. Originally, it was going to be a 42 mile point-to-point (P2P) ride, but it made more sense to park right off I-17 and ride the 7 miles along Orme Rd. to the northern terminus of the Black Canyon Trail (BCT). That would make retrieving the car at the end much easier and Orme Rd. is a nice ride. The other car would be left in Cottonwood, at the base of Mingus Mtn. The nice thing about that is, the final 10 miles or so are almost all downhill!!

The ride was now sitting around 50 miles and I expected a steady pace all day. Everything looked great on satellite!! (Famous last words, eh?)

We met up in N. Phoenix and caravan'd to Cottonwood. We left Tara's vehicle there and made our way south to the Dugas/Orme Rd. exit off I-17. We readied ourselves for the day and wouldn't you know it, 15 minutes ahead of schedule! I just need to load the track and we're off...hmmm, where's the track...shit. I did everything to the track last night EXCEPT copy it to the GPS. #awkward

No worries, I have the route on rideWithGPS, so I pulled that up on my phone, then sent myself a text with the turn by turn cues. There were only 4 or 5 forest roads for the entire route, how hard could it be?? Car locked, let's ride!!

The first 7 miles were familiar terrain to me, some early washboards gave way to great riding conditions.

Big sky country up here.

The obscure northern terminus of the BCT.

Nearing the end of Orme Rd. and the outskirts of Dewey.

We noted that we had already gained over 1000'.

A short bit of paved SR169 brought us to Old Cherry Rd.

A quick check of the phone to verify our next turn. Photo by Tara.

This one slice of private land was my only real concern. I couldn't see a gate on satellite and it was easy, clean sailing. Always glad when these things work out.

It was a nice homestead ranch too, all by its lonesome with great views.

After cresting a short hill, a long fast downhill greeted us.

Two hours in, time for a snack break. This area reminded me a lot of the Stagecoach400 route in SoCal.

Rut-roh, didn't realize we were going to be on THIS!! The running joke here is, the Great Western Trail is...Western. That's it.

Our next turn was onto Cherry Creek Rd. a nice paved climb. It was beginning to get a bit toasty in the lower, unshaded elevations.

We topped out over the climb a little over 5,000' and began a rapid descent. Next thing I knew we were surrounded by tall pines and camping!! Seemed out of place at such altitude, but it was beautiful. The road soon turned to dirt and we rode through the tiny hamlet of Cherry. There's an old volunteer fire dept. and a bed & breakfast!!

The good dirt continued and we'd climb over that small rise up ahead.

The road mostly contoured the hillside and was really nice to ride.

We stopped to get our bearings and Tara said, 'I think we missed our turn. Looks like we're about 2 miles off route.' Huh? I checked my phone and sure enough we were nowhere near the track!! Tara mentioned her phone had been beeping but didn't know what it meant. Mine was quiet. The difference being, I only use the free version of rideWithGPS, Tara is a paid subscriber and those beeps were alerting us about a missed turn!! Learn something new every day.

Remember that well contoured road? We'd be riding back through Cherry on it now!!

The bed & breakfast complete with books to read.

A family out enjoying the old fire dept.

We ended up returning to the paved portion, climbing a bit and found a very large, wide open forest road, FS132, where we should have turned. I guess I was enjoying the fast paved downhill too much to notice. What's an extra 5-6 miles anyway??

Back on route and in the trees!! Time for lunch.

We knew the main climb was coming, just had to get through the next 5 or so miles.

The grade wasn't too bad. It was slow going, but rideable. Tara was beginning to feel the effects of 4+ hours of steady climbing. She walked some bits, but otherwise rode great.

The views to the south were beginning to open up.

Nearing the top of a long steady grind.

It was somewhere in here that a white pickup slowly caught up to us. We had stopped on the side of the road to let them pass and the driver asked if we needed anything. I asked if they could spare any cold water? They more than willingly obliged. It was brain numbing cold!! Soooo good. It lifted both of our spirits.

Still climbing, nearing 6,000'.

We finally topped out on the main climb, but knew a few more ups & downs awaited.

We were ready for a nice downhill. Let 'er rip!!

The radio towers of Mingus Mtn. from a unique vantage point.

We kept checking the route to see when we'd hit our next turn.

That turn would lead us to the big final descent. The day was already longer than both of us expected. Water was warm, we were ready to be finished.

Before long we reached our turn and there were a few scattered campers, but no one around. I mentioned to Tara that if we see anyone at camp we should ask for some cold water. A mile later we saw a family hanging out by their trailer. We rolled up and asked if they had any cold water to spare. Next thing we knew a guy was coming towards us with an armful of water bottles!! 'Take as much as you need and here's a couple cold ones'. Whoa. Faith in humanity restored. Again, the cold water froze my throat. We couldn't thank them enough. They even asked us if we wanted anything to eat, they were getting set to make tortas, tacos, etc. Now, don't get me wrong, we both would've loved that, but it was getting late and we didn't really have too much effort remaining. We thanked them for the offer and rode away.

Our first glimpse of the Verde Valley!! Photo by Tara.

Still a long ways off, but a lot of down between here and there.

All smiles now!!

One last climb, leading to the saddle on the right.

The temps were pleasant above 6,000', shade was nice too.

I began the final climb and passed a couple of OHV's that had stopped in the roadway for a beer break. I asked if this was the beer handup station and was promptly offered one!! I did want one, but opted to keep cranking up the hill. I barely beat the OHV crew to the summit as they sped off down the mountain.

View from the top sure doesn't suck.

Tara's electric orange rig. Photo by Tara.

What's this?? Running water? It was cold too, pouring from the side of the mountain. We didn't need any now and it was only 8-10 miles to Cottonwood from here.

While we were stopped Tara had a revelation of sorts. She mentioned to me that she thought she left her car keys back in my car...at the start. Hmmm. She checked and double checked every pocket, compartment & pouch. Nada. Well, nothing we can do about it now except make a plea on social media. I asked if anyone I knew was in the area and about to head south. If so, I could pickup my car and drive back. Option 2 was to call AAA, then a local locksmith. In the meantime, keep riding.

Continuing down Mingus on a more friendly portion of road.

Verde Valley getting closer.

The Mingus downhill hit a step, a 2 mile flat section that gave our hands/wrists a break.

Here are the summit towers from the other side of the mountain.

The leaves were putting on a show, splashes of red along the way.

We rolled up to the area where the Coco250 veers off towards trail 106 and found the group of OHV drivers from earlier. They were amazed at our tenacity and couldn't believe how far we rode!! For the third time on this ride we were offered ice cold water!! Yes, please. Even though we were only a few miles from being finished, it was much appreciated.

Shadows growing long in the valley.

The panoramic spread is rather impressive, all of Sedona dead ahead.

'In a couple of weeks, I'll be camping there, then riding up here!!' Photo by Tara.

Saw this sign posted next to some trail crew vehicles. New dirt is coming to Cottonwood!!

If you want to help out, here you go.

A couple of trails are complete.

We made it back to Tara's car, no keys on the ground. She made a call to AAA, but was on hold for a while, then gave up. Next in line was a local locksmith. He answered right away and said he could be there in 2 hours. We needed to eat, so we rode over to Las Salsitas for mexican fare. They even let us bring in our bikes!!

Table for two, please.

After dinner we still had about 20 minutes before the locksmith arrived. He got to work, explained the fees (let's just say you shouldn't lose or misplace your keys late on a weekend!!) and had us on the road by 9:30p. Back at my car, we found Tara's keys sitting under her duffel bag on the passenger seat!! Lesson learned.

So, the key to Mingus is: bring them!! In spite of it all it was a great ride and Tara's longest to date - huge kudos!! Thanks for joining the fun, but maybe next time we'll do a loop!!

Route: