Even one week ago, today’s ride would have proven too difficult for us. But today we did it, we conquered the Crest. It was a really nice day for a ride, and a wonderful temperature for going up above 10,000 feet to hike around. The day started out a bit weird. Craig and I met up at the Flying Star on Rio Grande, where I got breakfast and he had coffee, but they were not on their game like usual, which was a bit disconcerting. There was some confusion about the timing of getting gas on the way out, and the city seemed to be swarming with cops as we were going up 66 to head to Cedar Crest and HWY 14. It’s hard not to speed and weave on a powerful motorbike. Cops always make me a little nervous on the road.

When we got to the first red light in Tijeras, we had seen many bicyclists, and there were two stopped on the side of the road going the opposite direction. Craig started yelling at them in an English accent about how badass they were for riding in the mountains with nothing but the power of their own legs. At first the dude looked very perplexed, but eventually they started laughing, and I laughed the whole time, watching this somewhat absurd interaction.

I felt very confident on my moto as we turned left onto the road up to the crest. I had been lead through Cedar Crest, but Craig passed me once we got into the National Forest, and set the pace for the trail up the mountain. I leaned into the turns and let the weaving of the road wind ahead of me as I shifted my weight back and forth to take the switchbacks.

Rather sooner than I was expecting, we got to the top and parked in the parking lot. We had talked at the bottom about taking a short hike while on the crest, so we set out in the direction of the stone cabin that the Kiwanis club built in the 30’s (as we were told by a talkative older lady when we were hiking along a cliff-top). There was a good deal of snow, semi-melting, on the trail, so we jumped the fence and hiked along the edge of the crest where it was stone. The vistas from there were breathtaking.

When we got to the little stone cabin, there were two guys on the roof who were having some issues getting down. we went inside the cabin for a few seconds, then continued our trek along the edge, even climbing down one tier of the cliff. I am glad that I am not afraid of heights, cause looking down would have been terrifying from where we were. I felt nimble enough to get around the stones, but I very much wished I had pants other than jeans. Armored leggings, perhaps?

We half-slid down a rocky miniature valley til we found a little shallow cave-type area where people had apparently built a small firepit, and took in the view to the south from there. After making it back up the rocks and dirt, we decided to take the forest trail rather than go around the crest back the way we came. The snow was incredibly difficult to walk through, I often sank in up to my thighs. Craig tried to instruct me in the way of the snow walking; I got better at it, but it was definitely difficult, clopping along placing my feet like a careful horse.

Due to the snow and the thin air, we got very tired very fast, and also managed to get a bit lost. The trail we were following did not go back up to the parking lot, and our frustrations started to flare as the trail kept veering slightly right instead of going left and up like it should have. Eventually I spotted the road a bit above us, and we wound up crawling through the non-packed snow to get up to it. The thin air made it nearly impossible to catch our breath, and we had to hike up the road a ways to get back to the parking lot and our bikes.

After our snowy trek, our shoes and pant legs were very wet, so we leaned up on the guard rail in the sun drying out for a bit before heading down the mountain. I lead on the way down, which was probably for the best; after trekking through the snow I was tired and my hands and shoulders hurt, so I kept sliding my back wheel out a bit on the turns. in one switchback my shoe scraped the road as I leaned into the turn. Can’t lean too much more than that!

We made it back to Albuquerque without incident, and well before it got dark; we had taken a 2 hour hike and ridden up and down that mountain. I can hardly believe we took on those switchbacks and won.