March 31st: Today is a 46-mile ride, our longest, and our last full day of biking. We shuttled to Ubehebe Crater, which was formed about 2,000 years ago by hot magma rising to the earth’s surface and encountering a large reservoir of underground water, which was turned into superheated steam. This caused an explosion that created a crater 500’ deep and ½ mile in diameter and spewed shattered rock over 6 square miles. It is the largest of such explosion craters in the area.
From the overview,
we biked downhill for 5.6 miles
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| Bush in Bloom with Yellow Flowers |
to the intersection with Scotty’s Castle Rd, which we followed and experience a couple of modest uphill climbs for a total elevation increase of 975 ft. Then we had about 27 miles of initially step downhill (12 miles) followed by sloping downhill (10 miles) and then 3 miles of gentle uphill to our lunch stop, which was the same spot we used yesterday.
After lunch, we had the 8-mile gentle downhill ride to Stovepipe Wells Village. To the right we passed the Mesquite Flat sand dunes.
At 3:00 pm we met our guides for a short drive to Mosaic Canyon, where we had a 1-mile hike in this slot canyon with great views of the geological makeup of the canyon walls.
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| Mosaic Canyon Road from my Room |
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| Entrance to Mosaic Canyon |
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| Clinging to Life |
Here is the General Store on the Stovepipe Wells grounds.
Our final group dinner was at 6:00 pm in the Toll Road Restaurant.
Just after sunset.
Tomorrow we have our last ride; 17 mile from Towne Pass (4953’) where the temperature is to be 25 degrees cooler than the valley floor. Then we depart for Las Vegas.
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