Cortez and Page

On the way from Durango, we made a stop for a mountain bike ride at Phil's world in Cortez. The rumor was that the trails were child friendly. The first challenge was finding the trail head just off Hwy 160, after

driving past it the first run we realised it was next to the riffle club and turned into an non-sign posted rough rocky track. Luckily a car with bike on top promptly came past showing the way. It turned out to be Gill a

Overlooking Cortez

member of the Kokopelli MTB club who helps maintaining the 31 miles trail network. He offered to show us around despite warnings that we would be slow. The day was freezing with the wind from the north and brisk. Gill thought it was great weather as it brought nice clear air. He lives just north of Mesa Verde and the snow storm we caught two three days prior had brought the biggest snowfall all season, 8 inches. It had promptly melted of course. We set off on a great ride of flowing trail, never climbing far but with descents that made the most of the elevation. It's the sort of place where you can nearly forget about brakes. At the top of the trail we overlooked Cortez and Gill showed us a large rock that moved be standing on it and rocking. We also discovered that by chance he had been involved in organising road and MTB courses for the Beijing Olympics. 

Rib Cage = roller coaster

Our descent started on the massively fun Rib Cage trail, as the name implies an undulating trail like a roller coaster. The fun continued down to the RV finishing our short 2.5 hour ride! If in the area - ride this place.

Cortez, as we have discovered is also the place of the largest manhunt in America since the earlier outlaw days of Butch and Sundance. We heard of the story from Jim, who happened to go to school with some of the fugitives. There has been a book just released (April), Dead Run by Dan Schultz, retelling the story as best possible. Rob is currently reading the story and it's fascinating, no doubt because we had seen the area and met people who knew the perpetrators.

After the ride we continued to the Four Corners National Monument to put a body part in four states at once (NM, Arizona, Utah and Colorado). It's an expensive exercise being charged $5 a head for the brief experience, but it had to be done.

Then it was onwards to Page for the night. The next morning we went to look at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Dam. There was some great scenery to be had before we continued towards Zion NP.

Lake Powell