Day 5 – Hot Loop to house mountain loop – 35 miles of hellatious fun – 7000 vertical, my legs are numb

                Early start 9:45 we leave from the house – Supposed to be rain today, although it is just partly cloudy.  So nobody can carry the map and book for me – So I attack the ride book with a butchers knife, ripping out the pages..  Can I carry anything else for you guys, maybe your water???  Onward – quick road ride to trail head – hot loop single track awesome climb – I was the only one to clean it CT was bitching and moaning about his shifters..  LUTC and Scooter were dragging a bit, but kept good spirits as we started the wicked cool single track rocky descent with hairpin turns and incredible scenery..  Found a waterfall wash section for crash bros to play on, right turn, more downhill through loose red rocks at full speed – craig eats a cactus right before the barbed wire fence crossing.  At the bottom it flattened out and we rode a stream bed rock garden for a mile or so (big smooth forgiving rocks)..  We somehow miss a turn and follow this trail that parallels 179 south – (the direction we are headed)..  Trail was strange, good, cool different – grassy, some leaves, single track with rock ledge sections that runs along the stream..  Finally we hit 179 and using every map figure out we want to go south – 1 mile – right up fs120, UP UP UP Beaver sign gives focker hope..  We are looking for a stick in the ground at mile 1.8 that says 09120..  There is none – we did tons of scouting, used the gps, reason, bad maps,  calculation, approximation, dumb luck, stupidity to pick the right road..  In retrospect we were on the right road, but second guessed every spur off of it and had to explore (actually I just wanted to piss everyone off)..  Climb FOREVER, on a baby budha head road.  Took many spurs looking for this “view”  I scouted one trail and thought I found the view..  Backtrack – We find a tarantula on the trail, then we see many tarantula nests as we see one emerge.  Later we end up on a trail of millions of these nests.  Back up we finnaly think we see the trail, but it’s the “view”.  Back track right turn – MORE CLIMBING..  Patients wearing thin, every time you think we are just about to crest a hill and hit the forever magical downhill that ends up 50 feet from the house, another hill appears..  FINALLY we see green tanks (on the map).  Loose rock fire road downhill we are like you got to be kidding me!!  All that vert for this..  Then a ways down – sick single track!!!  Almost worth the blood sweat and tears we endured today..  Oh I forgot, my nose has been bleeding like a siv all day, and I invented a new thing called a nose tampon or mini tampon for these situatins.. that is if you don’t have a few French fries to cram up your nose..  Yes I have to work on that coke problem of mine..  Anyway – SWEET single track – lots of smiles except scooter who is riding a fully rigid bike (he is re-thinking that theory now).  More single track – Focker and CT ride ahead with my directions to get the car for scooter.  The rest of us enjoy the last mile of single track and head back to the house..  I find a single track shortcut that indeed ends up 50 feet from the house.  I left scooter at the curbside check in at Valley Verde road..  Back to the house for Hot tubs, coffee booze, pizza, TV etc….  We were talking about food on the trail all day as the energy bars were wearing thin.  Lack of water sucked too..  Im thinking rest day tomorrow (ie less than 20 miles, less than 2000 vertical)..  OK we are going to watch star wars empire strikes back and drink every time luke whips out his light saber..  Signing off PM

                5 GORILLA FISTS UP YOUR BUTT, and they wont let go