Mountain Bike New Mexico - Rides Days 7-9

Day 7 - Albuquerque Public School Mud Spring Trail. Permission is required for this ride. Call the number listed on the photo if you want to visit.

 

Wildlife on this ride included a miniature horned lizard.

Quite frankly this ride is better hiked than ridden, because most of the connector trails - like a beautiful one to the Faulty trail - go into designated Wilderness areas (no bikes allowed, really.)

This ride was followed by another entry into the National Forest (non-Wilderness and bikes allowed) from Ranch Rd off of North 14 in Cedar Crest - The trail enters off of Pinyon Road. Permission is technically required to enter this way too, and access is easier from the Cienega horse bypass trail and Cienega parking areas. Those spots are currently closed for forest thinning but will be the topic of future posts. This area links to the Faulty trail by way of the Armijo trail. A variety of unnamed trails also exist in this area which is nice for exploration and solitude.

Day 8 - Back to Golden Open Space with friends. Golden is flanked by BLM land in tan and State land in blue. It is surrounded by private holdings and is located just to the West of the Cibola National Forest.

Warm day and humid, since it had just rained. But an excellent day to ride in a special location with friends. (Forgive the sweat on the camera lens)

Spectacular light on the sandstone formations and sparse vegetation.

Factoid - Golden Open Space was one of the first Albuquerque open space areas set aside, in 1964!


We were able to complete a loop by riding in the rain saturated arroyo, making this ride technically different from the one posted earlier. The arroyo and the trails showed evidence of much recent erosion from our monsoon rains. Not safe in or near a rainstorm, certainly! However, on this day, it was a real treat to ride in the arroyo through sandstone formations.

Day 9 - Gutierrez Open Space, this is a 700+ acre set aside natural area, which is also part of the Albuquerque Open Space network.


These are excellent, excellent, excellent trails. I visited this area to day with Matt DiFrancesca, visiting emergency medicine medical student and wilderness medicine instructor.

We accessed Gutierrez Open space from Gutierrez Canyon road, off of Old 66 near Tijeras New Mexico. Click below for directions and a map.

Smiles abound on one of the nicest sections of singletrack in the Albuquerque area, and one of the best singletrack descents! We'll be back to this area for sure.