Duwango Tango Mancation '16: Days 5 and 6

Day 5.  We'd be left on our own today.  Matt McFee managed to drown his iPhone while fishing behind the Walmart (not kidding), so he needed to spend the day making his Hermosa Tours great again.

Bill Nye and I headed over to the low (but not lowest) hanging fruit over in Horse Gulch.  We wanted to play a bit more on Raider's Ridge and Snake Charmer, and then do some stuff over on the other side of the gulch.

Yeth, same spot we were in two years ago.

Same very awful, somewhat pathetic geek air spot.  Same very awful, somewhat pathetic geek air attained.

Bill Nye wanted to play on a feature he eyeballed two years ago (and rolled with Matt a couple days prior).

I did a terrible job capturing the steepness of this roll-in.  I felt it was very sketchballs, and nothing you're ever going to see me even attempt as I get closer to being 50 and further from 27.

We got a chance to do the descent down Anasazi that we skipped a couple of days ago.  Exposed at the top, so not really my bag, but glad I got to see it.  Then we rode all about and Bill Nye was starting to feel the effects of dragging a very Enduro™ bike all over some not-so-Enduro™ trails.  Cuchillo, Stacy's... what not.  Then one more time up Telegraph to some boner descending.

Bill Nye asked me if I wanted to swap bikes.

"Sure."

I wasn't on it for five seconds when I looked down at all the gears and rode face-first into a juniper bush, ripping off my shades and shredding my nose.  Doh.

"You can have this back."

That evening... free wine at the Bacon Western, hot tub, Thai food... something on cable TV?  Dunno.

The next day, we were going for the lowest of all the low hanging fruit, Overend Mountain Park.  It was literally right across the street from the Bacon Western.  A labyrinth trail system that Matt had told us we were likely to find ourselves going up the good stuff and down the bad if we weren't careful.  I had maps on my phone and whatnot, and we had an entire day to kill, so whatever.

The trails were once again not very Endurble friendly.  Punchy.  Lots of navigational stoppages.  Sun beating down.  Bill Nye called it a day and headed back to the Bacon Western, leaving me to find my way to higher parts of the mountain alone.

Bells was fun, Ned's Hill tried to kill me, some pleasant diddy-bopping, and I got to ride down Star Wars (the fun way).

Then I went looking for the black trails (expert) around Hogsback.

Lots of hiking later, I ended up here:

I thought things would get better from there on.  They did not.

This was the meat of it.  Shale slopes to the left and right.  Not a place to be for the person with an irrational fear of heights.  The wind was kicking, so I figured if I could just walk past this... it would only get better, right?

This is what was next:

I don't know how to describe how steep this really was.  It looked like I'd be tossing my bike on my back and scrambling with my free hand to get to... to where?  It didn't look like it was going to get any better.  I turned around and went back.

I came around the mountain the other way and found myself at the bottom of Hogsback looking up at it.  I made a good call.  (BTW: Since coming home, I've googled images and video of the trail.  I made a very good decision... especially being that I was out there solo).

Back down Hogsfoot and Spirit and back to Bacon Western, where Bill Nye was watching some awesome cable.  More free wine, hot tub moments, and out to eat with Matt to cap off the week.

One stop at the liquor store on the way back to home base so we could ensure much misery on a plane for the perfect bookend to the story.

Huge thanks to Matt McFee and Hermosa Tours for making America great again.  By using the shuttles and doing some in town rides, we were able to have a pretty sweet Mancation without having to rent a vehicle for six days.   Also, even tho it was hardly the coolest place in town nor the trendiest, I've got nothing but positives to say about staying at the Best (Bacon) Western on the west side of the river.  We were still a safe ride in bike lanes and on bike paths away from anywhere we wanted to be.  Free wine, hot tub, hose out back for bike washing (we assumed), bacon (natch) and other breakfast items... and cheap.  I thought it would suck.  It didn't.

I had an incredible time in Durango, despite the lack of dinosaurs.