Bikepacking Some Black Canyon Trail

Video

Feb 2020
The Black Canyon Trail, known as the BCT. We had a nice loop planned leaving out of Black Canyon City with one leg looping through the old mining town of Cleator.

Sour Gummies were the preferred power food, at least by Joannie and water generously provided by abundant cattle troughs as well as a refill at Bumblebee Ranch. We randomly bumped into a friend from my climbing days out on the trail. It is indeed a small world. With a big storm rolling in we cut one full day off our route which sadly, cut the Cleator loop out. We still spent 3 days, 2 nights in the beautiful Arizona desert on a mellow bike ride. As usual no epics, which meant we were doing it right.

Some findings:

The route does not feel remote as you are relatively close to I17.
Joannie's discovery of the difficulty level of riding singletrack fully loaded. (see video)
Our mutual discovery of the various spiny flora, dubbing the ride "the no fall zone"
Water was readily available from both creeks and cattle troughs - Should not need to be mentioned, but filter first.