6th Smokey Bear Dual Sport Motorcycle Ride

[sanderjavant]

Another Cloudcroft ride has come and gone.

We again stayed at the Spruce cabins, a good quiet location in Cloudcroft. Plus, they are owned and run by great people that are motorcycle friendly, and they even give a motorcycle discount.

Saturday, travel day.

We even got in some surprisingly good trout fishing on the lower Rio Penasco on the Sunday before the ride.

Day 1 Monday, July 28th started wet and ended wet but the ride in between was great! So we made the most of the dry time to keep moving to enjoy the dust free conditions and as you can see the tires are relatively mud free.

 

[Timbercat]

OMG I so want to do that ride. Beautiful

 

[bwdmax]

Nice!

 

[sanderjavant]

Day 2 - Tuesday, July 29

We rode north and east of Cloudcroft ending up north of Mayhill, then back on different roads and trails, it was early when we got back to Cloudcroft so we made a loop down to La Luz and back.

 

[sanderjavant]

Day 3 - Wednesday, July 30

We rode down La Luz Canyon over to High Rolls on Calico Peak road, then the West Side road, a little of the Rim trail, then to Scott Able, to Sacramento up and over to near Weed, to Masterson Springs and up and over Prestridge Hill to Rio Pennasco road, some of the Benson ridge trails and back to Cloudcroft.

 

[sanderjavant]

Day 4 - Thursday, July 31

We started out heading over to the Silver Springs campground to ride the Little Apache trail, a trail I've wanted to ride but never have. Well it's now been closed to motorcycles according to the signage at the trail head. I asked at the Forest Service office on Friday and the ranger had no idea if it was open or closed but said the signage at the trail head overrode anything else.

So that brings me to getting more riders to Cloudcroft, lack of OHV use with lead to more closures. Of course so will irresponsible OHV use...

So we backtracked to the Pines North trail, then to Russia Canyon, Lucas Canyon, Benson Ridge, Wills Canyon, out FSR64 then down to Apple Tree Canyon.

 

[Tourmeister]

Cool vids!

Rsquared and I rode the entire Rim Trail from North to South, including that last three mile stretch South of the West Side Road. He was on his KTM450 EXC and I was on my 530 EXC. It was a real hoot!! We also did Apple Canyon, which I really liked. I love riding in that area. It is just beautiful and the riding is great.

 

[sanderjavant]

We still haven't ridden all of the Rim Trail, sure would like to.

I also look forward to riding all of Apple Tree Canyon, after my miscue I kind of lost interest that afternoon, but it was great fun before that. My ribs still hurt.

Cool vids!

Rsquared and I rode the entire Rim Trail from North to South, including that last three mile stretch South of the West Side Road. He was on his KTM450 EXC and I was on my 530 EXC. It was a real hoot!! We also did Apple Canyon, which I really liked. I love riding in that area. It is just beautiful and the riding is great.

 

[sanderjavant]

Then the ride was over, as others were just arriving for their fun.
But, we wandered around and did some sightseeing on the way home.