To Douglas

January 30, 2020

Today’s ride is on the long side, and it’s one we fretted about when planning this loop. We’re high enough up that most nights it’s drops near freezing, and we’ve been hoping that the weather would be favorable for the fairly narrow window of biking hours we’re working with.

It’s freezing when I head over to the OK Cafe when it opens at seven. I get there a bit before Rachael, because I wanted to be out at dawn in case there’s a sunrise worth rising for. In the back of my mind is the glorious Tombstone sunrise we observed the last time we were here:

Not today though. The sky is perfectly clear. We have a perfect day for the ride - clear skies and a modest north wind. After we enjoy another fine omelet at the OK Cafe, I take a last look around town and then we retire to our room to wait for the day to warm up.

Our favorite early morning hangout in Tombstone. Good grub.

Flag raising at the Cochise County Courthouse (1882-1929).

Ocotillo and perforated rock. Bullet holes?

We’ve seen the curve billed thrasher before, but the light is better this time.

The white winged dove, a southwestern species. I haven’t taken a good look at one before and hadn’t noticed its blue mascara eye ring.

By ten it’s all the way up to about 45 as we pedal south out of town, and it feels warmer than that in the morning sun. After a few miles on Route 80 we turn left onto Davis Road, another of those roads like Gleeson that looks perfect on the map. We anticipate a quiet, enjoyable ride off Tombstone’s ridge and across to the huge basin that spreads north of Douglas.

It’s not quite the quiet road we anticipated though. Just as we start down this narrow two lane road a long haul trucker comes our way; and a minute later, here comes another. It turns out that this is a minor truck route, maybe an easier and faster drive than Route 80 that goes through Bisbee and climbs a thousand feet higher.

It’s a little worrisome at first because there’s no shoulder at all on Davis Road. It’s fine though. The traffic load overall is light, with vehicles passing perhaps every minute or two. You can hear them coming a half mile away, and ones going our direction invariably pull over into the other lane when they pass. For the most part it’s quiet, but you do have to keep alert.

And at that, maybe it’s a bit too quiet. Maybe a bit monotonous even, as we bike through miles of empty brown rangeland for the next two hours, seeing little more life than a pair of cattle. It might be that we’re carrying this lonely desert experience just a bit too far this winter. Thoughts start drifting off to how great it will be to see some of that Oregon green again. Soon enough.

Leaving Tombstone behind, southbound on Route 80. After a few miles we’ll turn off onto Davis Road for a byway that bypasses Bisbee that’s hopefully a quieter ride to Douglas.

On Davis Road. It’s pretty quiet but carries more traffic than we’d expected, much of it large trucks. I was surprised to find that it’s a truck route, but it’s probably an easier drive than through Bisbee.

Who says this country is lonely and boring? It has cattle!

Still on Davis Road, gradually dropping into Sulfur Springs Basin.

We picked this route partly because we thought it would be quieter than Route 80, but mostly because it keeps to a lower elevation. Route 80 climbs to near 6,000’ near Bisbee, and we were worried about winter weather when we scoped this loop out. We’ll pass through Bisbee on our way back west from Douglas, but it seemed prudent to just go through once and minimize the risk.

Also though, it takes us past Whitewater Draw, something that had escaped my notice until the last minute. Actually, I came across it by accident, looking at a newspaper back in Tucson that had an article on it. Southern Arizona is a major wintering area for sandhill cranes, and the article stated that there are about 30,000 of them staying at Whitewater Draw this winter. I checked out the map and was startled to see it was only a mile off today’s route. We redrew the route to include it, and planned it as our lunch stop for the day.

We’re hopeful that we’d see cranes, but don’t know what to expect. When we came through this basin three years ago we went crane hunting also, at Wilcox Playa and evening at Whitewater Draw, something I’d completely forgotten about until rereading that journal just now. Then, I don’t think we saw a single crane here; but at the first of November we were probably just too early and they hadn’t arrived for the winter yet.

Biking down to the Draw, still a mile away, Rachael stops in the middle of the road and points to the sky at a small flock of cranes passing overhead. A bit later, we see a flock of a few hundred off in the distance. Then, we get to Whitewater Draw itself and are stunned. The field is grey with sandhill cranes, thousands of them spread in a long, broad ribbon beside a channel.

I recorded a video of them so you can get a sense of their numbers and sounds. Sorry it’s so jerky - you’ll probably come away feeling slightly seasick.

After about ten miles we leave Davis Road to stop by the wildlife preserve at Whitewater Draw. We hear that they have a few sandhill cranes here in the winter - about 30,000 of them at last report.

Here are some now, beating us to the Draw.

There probably aren’t 30,000 cranes here at the moment - it’s midday, and many of them are dispersed foraging for food - but it’s certainly the most cranes either of us has seen before. Really a thrilling spectacle.

It’s surprising how close to them we can get. They’re just on the other side of a narrow channel, untroubled by the crowd of admirers and giant cameras a few hundred feet away.

Sandhill cranes, Whitewater Draw. We stopped by here three years ago on our first ride through this basin, on November 2nd, but we were too early apparently. There were no birds at all.

There’s more to Whitewater Draw than just its thirty thousand sandhill cranes. This chipping sparrow practically hopped on Rachael’s foot in its eagerness to be included in the blog.

So that’s it for drama for the day. We might have stayed longer but we still have 25 miles to go and it’s almost 2 already. With nothing too compelling to slow us down, we bike steadily south, helped along by the flat terrain and a mild tailwind, and pull into our hotel in Douglas right at four.

We’re staying in the Gadsden Hotel, a grand old structure dating back to 1907. We’ll be here two nights and then head west for Bisbee.

Leaving Whitewater Draw, we head back to the pavement for our final 25 miles to Douglas. Ahead are the Swissholm Mountains, a minor range southwest of the Chiracahuas.

From Whitewater Draw we continue south through flat Sulfur Springs Basin. Pretty featureless terrain, and still very brown. We’re above 4,000’ and I imagine it’s still too early in the season for much action.

The view east toward the Mule Mountains. Bisbee is out there somewhere, on the far side of the low range.

Ride stats today: 53 miles, 800’; for the tour: 1,507 miles, 73,300’

Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 1,507 miles (2,425 km)

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Jen RahnLove the sandhill crane video .. nothing like that sound!!

It prompted me to look up how tall they are .. do you know if it's the greater sandhill crane at 4.5 feet tall?

Also interesting to learn that a baby sandhill crane is called a colt.

Fascinating birds.
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4 years ago

Scott AndersonTo Jen RahnI read up a bit on the various subspecies, and came away confused. I can’t tell if these are the same subspecies as we see in Sauvie Island each winter or not. Great to know that the young are termed colts. I’ve never heard that before.
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4 years ago