Cycling Across America #72
Reservation
Part 72 of the Cycle-Across-America series. (Read from the start in Boston or see the full index)
My first full day in the state of Arizona, a day dominated by an Apache reservation.
This post is made up of excerpts from the audio-taped section of my journal so it’s long and frequently awkward. It will be edited and rewritten for the book.
Friday I think. No it’s not, it’s Thursday. The 7th of November. I’m not certain where I am. It’s not in Globe where I was supposed to be. I’m 7 miles from there. On the Apache Gold Reservation, Casino section.
None of the place is finished. The hotel, the casino, the restaurants. But, it’s open. 35 dollars for a room which should be about 70.
The way yesterday was laid out I decided to have breakfast before I left, then eat half way at a town called Bylas in the reservation. There was no chance of me going a few miles and having breakfast, that wouldn’t do much good so I had to go into a McDonalds for a 2nd morning on the trot.
It’s pretty built up from Safford, because you go through Thatcher, Central, and Pima - and they’re all within maybe 8, 10 miles of each other. All completely dominated by Mount Graham. It’s huge.
The road was a bit hairy, because there was no shoulder. A 4-lane with a turning centre lane, but there was little traffic so it wasn’t too bad.
When I got into Pima there was a sign which said “Last Motel for 70 miles” which struck me as a very threatening way of trying to get business. And it would’ve worked on me if it was the evening.
Mount Graham is 10,713. In that same section, because it’s almost free standing this small range, is Red Peak which is also over 10,000, and you could see snow up on that one but not on the higher one for some reason.
The valley was quite fertile, obviously well irrigated but I couldn’t see the river off to my right a few hundred yards. There’s quite a lot of cotton around. It’d been taken in and was in those big brick formats sitting in fields or in the backs of passing trucks. There wasn’t much else. I saw one tiny field of corn, which was a nice trip down memory lane.
The next town I got to was Fort Thomas, where there was what looked like a couple of big government buildings with the town on one side of the road in behind a big country store. And then, 5 miles further along, I came to Geronimo.
[The rest of this post, is continued below the fold]
Had I gone south back at Safford, and then gone on to the interstate, there’s a small town down there by Willcox and Willcox Lake called Cochise. But you can’t really get to it without going on the interstate.
And then I said, here I am in Geronimo where I’d wanted to have a drink. But I was carrying no liquid with me at all. If you stop it’s warm in the sun, another blue sky day, but when you’re moving, that wind, there’s a coldness in it, against the face.
Just outside Geronimo there was another historical plaque saying the town is called after himself, a famous medicine man, a Chircahua Apache. It gave the year when finally surrendered, and that he led his followers to forts in Oklahoma and Florida.
There was nothing in Geronimo. 2 buildings, both not lived in for a long time and fallen down.
I enter the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. It’s bordered by the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest to the east. To the west another National Forest -Tonto - that’s the big one with the Superstition Mountains in and the Apache Trail. To the north is another reservation, much the same size, Fort Apache Indian Reservation.
Really all you see in there is a few huts where a trailer home is luxurious compared to the other houses. I was going to eat at Bylas, which is the biggest town according to the map. There was certainly a lot of houses around, but just a gas station, and a store - Apache Market. I bought a lot of baps, 8, some bologna, some strange cake biscuit things, a snickers, an apple pie, a litre of milk - which I knew was too much, it might make me sick but I wanted a pint - and I bought a can of iced tea.
I looked at the jewellery and t-shirts but I didn’t really have time as the wind was starting to pick up just as I came into Bylas and I’d slowed down to 10 miles an hour fighting the wind. So I sat outside eating my stuff. Everyone going around was an Apache talking whatever language they were talking. On the wall there was a list of people eligible to vote. All the names were pretty much in English.
From Bylas I had 42, 43 miles to go, to get to Globe having gone 33. But I had the wind to fight and was also suspicious, the road on the map goes straight and yet it’s beside a lake. So that means it doesn’t follow the edge - it must go up and down.
A serious roly-poly road. Fabulous scenery. It was at times white gravel, pure white. Other times it was red, other times it was orange, other times it was brown sand. There were lots of yuccas, lots of other plants. I finally got to see my first saguaro, the big cactus, the big huge one. I saw one this morning, then I saw 2 of them together, and finally I saw not far off a forest of them up the slope of this mountain which was squared off like a table - the top, like a perfect ridge around the top of it and then it was flat. You get a lot of those kind of shaped mountains around here, mesas. But as well as seeing a mountain like that, beside it you’ll see 3 mountains which are all pure rock, grey, whereas that mesa might’ve been deep red, and they’ll be pyramid shaped coming right up to a peak. And also in the same range you’ve got perfectly rounded ones.
But to see those cacti, loads of them, on the slope of a barren mountain, there’s quite a presence about them, it’s almost like they’re crosses or something, like a graveyard. To me, the first day seeing them, it’s an event, it’s like crossing the Mississippi. Even though I’ve been in desert for hundreds of miles and I’ve seen tens of thousands of other cacti, this is a definite event.
There’s a lot of canyons and mountains. Since leaving Mount Graham, to my south you get the Santa Tereasa Mountains with Cottonwood Mountain which is 7 and a half thousand, then there’s Mount Turnbull by Bylas which is over 8,000. There was another big prominent one too.
Any rivers that went across the road are usually called washes, and they’re usually dry. They’d be pure sand or maybe a kind of gravel. Like a trail. Winding its way through canyons. At times pure white, white stones and gravel.
The road’s going up and down. At the top bits they’d be cut away, the hill, so it wouldn’t have to go so high - like a little pass.
And the colour then was amazing because the road was brand new, pure black asphalt. You had on either side a white wall. On one side it would be a brilliant white because it’s reflecting the sun. On the other side it’s creamish, because it’s in the shade. At the bottom there’s yellow grass with a few bright green bushes. Then you’ve got pure blue sky. I did think at times it reminded me of the Burren. A lot of the time the landscape just looked so unnatural, like Man had interefered with it. But he hadn’t.
I had passed an historical marker somewhere before the town of Geronimo, which said it was the original site of Camp Thomas, which was there to make sure that Geronimo’s men stayed in the Gila Valley farming.
So I’m going up and down these roads, constantly doing sums about average speeds I have to do if I’m to make it before nightfall, and I can see it’s close. I’m probably going to need to get on to a flat bit and push it up a bit but there’s a wind as well that I wouldn’t get sheltered from like when going up and down in these canyons.
Finally I reached Peridot, a kind of centre. It’s where the San Carlos River runs into the San Carlos Reservoir. I culd see ahead of me a road going right up a hill - which I thought was goging to be downhill all the way. That turned out to be Bucket Mountain. It’s not on the map here but it was on a map in the store at Peridot.
There was a marker saying Peridot was the site of original San Carlos, or at least that Old San Carlos was on the lake and they flooded it in the reservoir. They moved all the houses a few miles north which is where San Carlos is now, they put a large concrete slab on the cemetary - presumably to stop corpses swimming to the surface, and they did something else before flooding it. Some great t-shirts in the shop, I bought some drinks, drank them and off I went.
The scenery around Peridot - and San Carlos because I think it’s built up all the way - you got lots of little huts and new houses and lots of dirt and beer bottle around, and bags. Indeed anywhere in the reservation where you hear the rustle of wildlife, chances are it was actually a plastic bag. Then there were a few horses kind of just hanging around. The whole scene was incredibly close to home; it was very odd.
So up Bucket Mountain, a long long slope which seemed to go on and on for ever. Bucket Mountain itself, presumably is so called because th etop of it is squared of like a bucket. And then I’m still doing these sums and thinking when I drop I’ll have to do whatever miles an hour, and changing it and changing it so finally when I did drop I realised I’d have to go 18 or 19mph to have a chance. But I couldn’t.
I had to fight down the hill at 10mph. The wind got me once I got out into the open. The shoulder was 2 or 3 foot wide. At some points they had those ridges in it to warn cars not go on to it, that they were off the road. Unfortunately for a bicycle it renders it completely unusable. Traffic was getting heavier, as it does in the evenings and as you get nearer a town. So it finally drops right down, it levels out, I’ve about 7 miles to go, and I can see a flashing light. And I could see a building on the far side of the road from the flashing light. Hoping that either one of them are indicative of a motel of any description. I thought it’d be just safe to stop even if I hadn’t made it to Globe. The good thing about stopping was that I would be this side of the Bash-Ba-Gowah Indian ruins, so it’ll give me a chance to look at them.
The building on the left hand side of the road was actually a small aerodrome. On the right hand side it was the Apache Gold, and then I saw a sign for Best Western. It wasn’t quite dusk but the sun had gone behind the mountain which is a double-edged sword in that it’s great to have it not shining in your eyes, horribly blinding, but of course it gets darker. If I kept going I’d be 20 minutes in pitch black so I’d no hesitation in pulling in.
I’m happy watching television at the end of a night when you’ve had what a day. The days are very much back in the epic frame. This landscape is impressive. Up on Bucket Mountain, the view backwards was stunning, and to the north. You’re looking over canyons and mountains. I could see mountains I’d cycled past. I’m now higher than some of those, but the structures are so varied, and the colours, it’s so impressive. So would I want to after that just go and sit in a bar and have a drink and a laugh or a conversation with somebody? No. I just want to take it in.
When I was checking in there was a man
-Whereabouts in Ireland are you from?
-DublinHis wife’s from Donegal, he’s English. They live in Phoenix and have done since 1979. He asked me if I was going to Phoenix. I said yes, somebody was going to pick me up at whatever. I chatted with him for a bit and he told me it was a tough 7 miles into Globe so I did the right thing to stop. The whole time we were talking I was wondering should I say something and maybe arrange to join them for some company but I didn’t want to. I wanted to be alone. I didn’t write any cards last night either. I’ve just got a desire to be alone at the moment.
I tried to ring home and give double rings - I think it gave about 20. It’s so hard to cut off phones in this country.
So I’ve about 65 miles today. I have to ring someone from Superior. I go northwest, southwest, west, and then northwest. Should be an interesting day.
Read the Next Entry (#73) in My Bicycle Trip Across America
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Read more from my Cycle Across America
These excerpts are from the audio-taped sections of the journal.
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