Words by Kait Boyle, photos by Kurt Refsnider
Kait Boyle and Kurt Refsnider are professional backcountry and ultra-endurance cyclists and together are the Industry Nine-Pivot Pro Backcountry team. With a collective 3 decades of bikepacking under their belts, they’ve ridden and designed routes around the world which led them to found Bikepacking Roots, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to advocating for bikepacking and the landscapes through which bikepackers ride. As athletes they both love long rides in remote, rugged, wild landscapes.
The Arizona Trail is one of my all-time favorite trails in the entire world. So when my teammate Kurt and I carved out 5 days of riding in Arizona for a little team-spring-training camp, the AZT was at the top of my list for a bikepack trip.
Last year, following my annual pilgrimage to the AZT I reflected: while laying cold & sleepless next to it (AZT), I counted over 30 multi-day trips in my life on this trail. Over 100 days moving along it in various sections between Mexico and Canada including day outings - on bike and foot. It's become a way to recall past chapters and stories in my life. Both highlights I've celebrated like wins, records, running rim to rim to rim under a full moon, leading groups of students by foot and bike on leadership expeditions, and also many challenges that have led to measurable growth and learning as a person from mistakes, discomfort and uncertainty.
Generally new destinations, unknown routes, and unfamiliar landscapes inspire and drive me. But kicking off a season on dirt with a place that I have deep personal connection with and the personal stories and sense of place the landscape holds for me is grounding in “my why” as an athlete. Thus it seemed fitting for the marking of a new season to return to old ground to build energy, focus and fitness for a new season ahead.
Plus, Kurt and I were kicking off the season with freshly released bikes, and we wanted to go test them on the type of terrain we shape our calendars around riding: rugged, remote, long distance singletrack. Boasting all of those qualities (and more) the Arizona Trail is our perfect testing grounds for the new Pivot Trailcat LTs with the new Industry Nine Hydra2 hubs, built with Shimano XT drivetrain and brakes, XT trail pedals, and loaded with our lightweight bikepacking kits. We chose our favorite, longest, most wild and continuous section of technical AZT for our trip: Picketpost Trailhead, south to Mt Lemmon, ending with the infamous 7,000’ Lemmon Drop descent into Tucson.
Within 24 hours of arriving in Arizona, from my home in the Tetons, it had snowed 8” in Prescott, AZ, where Kurt calls home. After a historically dry winter, a storm had finally brought long overdue moisture to the southwest. It snowed down to ~3,500’ in elevation and steady rain quenched the thirst of the lower Sonoran desert. Unfortunately for us, this much needed infusion of winter was occurring right as we had hoped to start riding.
Between the inevitable terrible mud that would follow rain on the northern stretches of our route, and then even more problematically – over a foot of snow on the summit of Mt Lemmon – our plans had to change. We instead drove to Tucson to do a big day ride on the lower half of Mt Lemmon, and adjusted the length of our bikepack from 4-days to 2-days, and from Picketpost to Tucson to Picketpost to Oracle, cutting out the Mt. Lemmon up and over.
Our day ride plans changed the morning of, due to the Mt Lemmon highway being closed for snow more than halfway up the mountain. We pivoted to another nearby loop on AZT, more or less having to abandon all hopes of riding on Mt. Lemmon. We rode mostly in silence, both mentally tired from all the changing plans and both engaged in getting to know our new bikes that were quickly proving to be the perfect pedalable mid-travel trail bikes. 5 hours later we were back at the truck and stuffing one night’s worth of gear and food onto our bikes for our now very modified bikepack.
The next morning we pedaled south from Picketpost Trailhead where our friends Jennifer and Jason had dropped us off. The task at hand was now simple: just ride 100 miles of Arizona Trail back to Kurt’s truck, and get there by the following night. There wasn’t a store or highway between us and there, just a long stretch of remote and undeveloped desert. The soils had dried and we even had great desert “dirt”!
With each contour around a drainage I could feel the stress of my winter shedding away. My phone stayed on airplane mode, and pretty quickly we were refilling water at the Arizona Trail Association’s rainwater collector tank and cresting over the drainage divide into the Gila River canyons.
We clicked on our lights as the sun set into the deep red of southwestern dusk and we carried on up over the infamous Ripsey ridge. Kurt tried to clear every uphill switchback. I tried to keep my arms and legs out of cacti. It had been an easy decision to ride until about 8 or 9pm to camp near a water source and be slightly over halfway along our route. Our camping setups were simple - just a stove and pot, a freeze dried meal each, and a bivy set up each. A scorpion scampered by my nest for the night and I fell asleep hoping it was just passing through!
Our second day flew by. The desert remained shockingly dry looking for the season known to produce incredible wildflower blooms. Kurt and I generally rode at different paces, spreading out and regrouping naturally at junctions or water. In the midst of a busy year we were both enjoying the stillness that the desert can offer, even as you move through it. I mostly thought of past adventures out on the trail and felt so grateful to have a place that can mark decades of chapters in life.
We pulled up to Kurt’s truck parked on the north side of Mt. Lemmon. It would have been fun to pedal up and over, but the amazing thing about the Arizona Trail is it will continue to be there as long as we the trail community steward it and the landscape it traverses.
For resources on our route visit our guide to the Gila 100, for complete resources to plan a trip on the Arizona Trail, or support stewardship on the trail, visit the Arizona Trail Association.
