T-Dubing to the Cerro Colorado Mountains

Warm day today, it got over 70°F (21°C) under sunny skies!

I rode Yagi, my Yamaha TW200, using google maps to get close to the Cerro Colorado Mountains to the NW of my camp site.  It was all dirt trails, with no major challenges except for portions of road where mud had blocked the way.

I hate mud.

Each time though, except for one, I was able to bypass the mud obstacle by going off trail and winding my way through bushes and small trees to the other side of the trail where things were dry once again.

Google maps had outdated data, and I ended up in a dead end.  However, a quick look at the map on my phone and I could see a parallel route that worked to get me further onwards.

I ended up going around the north end of the Cerro Colorado Mountains and stopped with a view of the western side of these mountains:

 Western side of Cerro Colorado Mountains

 View of Baboquivari Peak

I retraced my route until I could get a good view of the eastern side of the Cerro Colorado Mountains:

Using Google Maps, as I had cut to reserve on the fuel tank, I was making my way back to civilization and fuel when I saw this view of the Cerro Colorado Mountains below:

What caught my eye was what I thought was a massively large petroglyph on the side of one of the mountains:

 It turned out to be a trick of the light (click to enlarge)

However, the trick wasn't obvious to me just by viewing the picture

through the LED display on the camera.

Continuing on, I ended up on a road that led to private land and a gate.  Access however is permitted to allow folks to get back to public lands.  Just make sure to close the gate as you pass.

A few miles later, I was back on Arivaca road, the eastern end.  A bit over 8 miles east of the town of Arivaca itself.  So that's where I rode, and getting to the town's gas station with 106 miles on the tripmeter and pumping 1.6 gallons into the tank.  (it's capacity of 1.8 gallons).

Fueled back up, I retraced my route on the Arivaca Road back to the entrance road that leads to Rancho Seco.

Cerro Colorado Mountains on the left

Found a trail that allowed me to get much closer than the above pic

About two miles later (the last half mile was basically loose stone and small boulders which made things interesting) but Yagi handled it all with no issues.  I got all the way to the end of the trail and parked Yagi.

It was then a short hike (less than 1/4 mile I estimated) to the base of the mountains where I sought out the "petroglyph" I'd seen from the road earlier.  Nothing.

 The above rock formation is where the "petroglyph" was, which

turned out to be a trick of the light

 Northern portion of the Cerro Colorado Mountains

I made it back the 14 miles back to Arivaca with no issues, picked up some grub at the Mercantile Store which is also the gas station and then went back to camp.

Sunset was clear skies, so not very exciting:

 Sunset Mode in the camera