Emily & Silent Partner

Afternoon, Peeps!

It’s 4th of July weekend and time to Airstream again! For the next few days we’re up here at Prescott’s White Spar Campground. We already did an extensive review of this area here, so instead we’re using this time to blog about what’s new – in this case, more mountain biking!

To that end, we we rode #9415 Wolverton Mountain Trail this morning.

The Wolverton Mountain Trail is rated as a blue-black and after comparing notes on the ride we agree with this rating.

This 10-mile (16km) out-and-back begins across from the campground and immediately slaps you in the face with aggressive sustained climbing that meanders anywhere between 5% and 10%.

I think the trail might be better named “Touched by Fire”, though. The climb takes you through dense scrub and evidence of a terrible forest fire sometime in the past.

One thing that caught us off guard climbing here was the exposure – there is so little foliage, and so much dead-fall, the temperatures already hit low 90s (33C) by 9AM.

By the end of the ride we’d both worked our way through most of our water.

The climb consists of moderately technical surface though much of the trail is steep off-camber single-track and crushed rock like this. It never occurred to me why the campground was named “White Spar” but it turns out the term “spar” refers to any bright crystalline substance.

We only made it 4mi (6.4km) in before turning back, the altitude and heat was getting to us.

On the descent you are greeted with an extraordinary view; San Francisco Peaks visible in the distance.

Also we took some time to smell the flowers.

And… enormous private telescopes?

Conclusion

We’ll absolutely ride Wolverton Mountain Trail again, probably on Tuesday. By then we should be adjusted to the altitude and we’ll head out a little earlier. Seen you soon with more Airstream updates!