Pines, rocks, & chocolate. Az ridin' the Rez.

Ridin' the Rez. 8/20/10

Kim, Tom & i met at the sedona exit off of I-17 to for a ride to the Navajo Reservation. With the recent monsoon rains, we hoped there would be some water in the little colorado river, & grand falls, aka chocolate falls would have some flow. Tom rode over from Prescott, & we were off, going up the old blue grade into the mountains in the mogollon rim.

The ride up stoneman lake road.. this used to be the main road to flagstaff before they built I-17.



It was about 4k ft where we left, & we would get up near 8k elevation. The rim country is nice & cool this time of year. We had some puddles, but nothing too dramatic.



We did a little exploring.. took a different route than we usually do when in these parts. Naturally, we had a bit of backtracking to do, gates to cross, some pretty rocky roads, too. It was nearing 11am when we got to the morman lake area.



Back on some easier roads, we enjoyed the trees.. nice cool pines & some aspen stands.



This is Morman 'Lake'. It's an open meadow that can get filled with water in a very wet season or high snowfall. We had a pretty wet winter, but it was pretty dry by late spring. It did make a nice wildflower display, though.



We lost a little time on the rim, so decided to jump on the pavement for few miles.. lake mary road to wynona ranch road.



Here we got onto the wynona ranch road.. some of it is a boulder field.. just rain drainage.