The big takeaway from the spring trip: if anyone ever asks if you want to visit McElmo Canyon, say “yes”.
It’s a meandering and meaningful story about why we ended up in Cortez for our Spring Training Camp (ask us later) but we could not have envisioned a nicer environment to explore. Our accommodations were a refurbished 1888 farmhouse solidly in the heart of a sheep ranch, surrounded by the walls and history of all the cultures living in the McElmo canyon, 22 miles west of Cortez. To the south is Sleeping Ute Mountain and the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation. To the north is Canyon of the Ancients National Monument- the only National Monument that allows you to ride singletrack in America, but that is far from its most intriguing quality. To the west is Hovenweep National Monument and the back road to Four Corners and Moab.
According to Strava, we were the third people to ride our bikes down the Canyon this year. Of course that doesn’t count the mountain bikers who drive down and ride the singletrack.
Needless to say, we were a novelty to the Native Americans, farmers, ranchers and commuters. Waving to everybody is de rigeur, whether you are on a bike, tractor, horse, in the truck or a camper van. Even the semis were courteous. Both of them.
I spent 30 hours on the bike this week, had countless deep and fierce conversations, never got completely lost, found new limits while completely immersing us as much as possible into the flow and rhythm of the area.
To be successful in McElmo Canyon, it seems you need to be an artist. Ming and Garry cultivate a daily tableau for their guests on the ranch to live within- it is constantly being improved, one blade, rock, and wooly back at a time. John Sutcliffe presents his life of wisdom, knowledge, tall tales and joie de vie in each bottle and succulent bite of his winery. Dan Hobbs found the perfect environment of seclusion and incubation to promote pure foods and cultivate seed libraries for generations to come. They are some of the artists living life in each purposeful moment, authentically and inclusively in this Canyon.
We discovered interesting juxtapositions on the Ute Mountain Ute Reservation: forgotten oil well skeletons deep in the heart of the desert and, just 10 miles off the paved highway with the tribe’s casino, fields of grass irrigated with pivots filled with water from McPhee Reservoir. As we rode up a steep canyon, traversed sandy beds and rainbow hued clay deposits, the gravel roads wound through cattle guards and spring blooms appreciative of an unusually wet winter, and I wondered if these people who have lived on the land for thousands of years are gaining the tools to be 21st century “Americans”, or making every possible effort to adapt and guarantee survival?
It will take years for me to truly absorb it all fully. That’s what each and every long bike ride is for.
Cheers!
