CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 157 km loop that starts and ends near Silver City, about 3 h 18 of riding. It goes by way of Pinos Altos, Lake Roberts and Gila Cliff Dwellings. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For 12 km this is Trail of the Mountain Spirits, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 19 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Silver City is the kind of place that makes people wonder why they did not find it sooner. It sits at about 5,900 feet on the edge of the Gila country in southwest New Mexico, a few miles from the Continental Divide, and its brick downtown still carries the mark of the mining boom that created it in the 1870s. A flood in the 1890s carved out the main street into a ravine, and the Big Ditch park now runs where Main Street once was, which is one of those local facts that stops visitors in the middle of the pavement.
Read the complete Near Silver City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Silver City is where the day begins. Next is Pinos Altos.
Pinos Altos means tall pines, and the little old mining town above Silver City lives up to the name. It sits at about 2,000 metres in the Gila National Forest, in a cool bowl of ponderosa pine and oak, and the main street has the unhurried, slightly crooked look of a place that has seen a gold rush and decided to stay on. The first strike was made here in 1860, drawing prospectors and a ragged frontier population, and for a while it was a hard, violent camp, fought over by miners and the Apache, on whose land they were digging.
Read the complete Pinos Altos write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pinos Altos comes up 27 km in. Next is Lake Roberts.
Lake Roberts is a small reservoir in a pine-and-juniper valley in the Gila National Forest, at about 2,000 metres, and it has the quiet, slightly secret air of a place that most travellers drive straight past. The lake is under a hundred acres, edged with reeds and ponderosa pine, with a campground and a small marina on one side and rounded hills on the other, and it is popular with anglers after trout and bass. Mornings are still, with mist rising off the water, and evenings bring elk and deer to the shore.
Read the complete Lake Roberts write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
54 km in you reach Lake Roberts. Next is Gila Cliff Dwellings.
The last miles to the Gila Cliff Dwellings are the reason the Trail of the Mountain Spirits has its reputation. From Silver City the road climbs through the old mining village of Pinos Altos and then settles into a long, tight conversation with the mountains: pine, juniper, a ridge, a drop, another ridge. It is slow going, and nobody who rides it fast enjoys it. Count on a couple of hours for the last stretch, and be glad of every turnout, because the corners come in strings and the surface is the sort of patched asphalt that rewards a rider who looks well ahead.
Read the complete Gila Cliff Dwellings write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gila Cliff Dwellings, late in the day. Next is Silver City.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Near Silver City write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Silver City. That is the ride.
Silver City → Pinos Altos is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pinos Altos → Lake Roberts is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lake Roberts → Gila Cliff Dwellings is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gila Cliff Dwellings → Silver City is 52 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.