Atalaya over to Picacho

  Ohhhh My! Jay and I had a sweet ride the other day. We decided to finally tackle the ride from ST. Johns college. It is a ride that you can do right from town. I love that there are a number of rides that you can do right from your hotel if you are visiting Santa Fe. So I met Jay at the trail head at St. Johns and we departed

  The trail starts out in a arroyo, but then splits off and starts to ascend Atalaya mountain(9121 ft.). The riding is steady climbing from here all the way to the Peak and gets steep as a muv in places.
  The ride in the trail book I have suggests a out and back at around 8 miles up to the peak and turn around. But when we got to the peak we consulted my Map of the Mountains of Santa Fe and the Pecos valley and saw that you can connect Atalaya with South Dale Ball right at Picacho peak. That sounded more fun and turned out to be a real fun decent to Picacho peak(8577 ft). Then we got to ride Dale Ball south out to upper canyon rd and I took the road back to my car to finish out the ride.
   Another sweet Santa Fe ride under my belt. and the first one of 2006.
  What is in your audio player lately? I am going old school and listening to X- Wild Gift. I love that about the ipod you can have it on random the whole library, and it brings up albums that you might not of thought to put on.
   Here are a few pics from the sweet ride
one of a couple rich people dirt roads we had to cross.Looking back at where we had just climbed up from.

Jay on a sweet section of trail




View


Looking back down the trail


Finally at the peak...Phewwww
the RIG R.I.P


A nice spot to rest your tired legs.
and give thanks.

Me at the peak


At this point my book says to turn around and enjoy the descent. We decided to go on to Picacho peak and down to upper Canyon.


Here is a view from Picacho Peak




Lets all have a Sweet 2006! Full of goodness.
Here is some goodness Ella made.



More later on that being the RIG's last ride........