Prescott Arizona News and Events - Read It News Magazine

The winter I lived in Minneapolis, I discovered that when it was 10 degrees below zero, my eyeglasses iced up while I rode my bike. I rode on frozen lakes, too, but winter quirks and inconveniences are nothing compared to the many layered experience of trying to commute by bicycle in Prescott.

Here, daytime and nighttime temperatures have a typical range of 30 degrees, meaning that whatever you pick out to wear in the wee morning hours will cook you alive if you don’t shed it by noon. That being said, mountain biking is over in Minneapolis by November 16. And in some ways, it’s just getting going here in Prescott. For one thing, it’s cool enough to mountain bike without risking dehydration and heat exhaustion, and for another, you have many of the trails to yourself.

With that in mind, my uninitiated boyfriend and I headed out to Lynx Lake to get him started riding on trail 305. Just as time fills in the potholes on memory lane, so did it smooth out trail 305. I’d forgotten about the steep drop-offs, the hairpin curves and the loose, rocky chutes. What I remembered was a gently winding single track trail that follows Walker Road from near Highway 69 past Lynx Lake. It’s that too, plus the scary-to-newbies stuff I’d forgotten.

So, as we rode the trail, it all came back soon enough, and my mountain bike newby- honey was ready to go home after a couple of miles of trail 305.

Fortunately, just past the Highlands Center for Natural History, there’s a trail exit off to the right that passes through a giant metal drainage pipe. When you come down the hill after the Center and the trail climbs to the left, head right instead up the drainage and there it is. It’s meant for human traverse just like the pipes then-Public Works Director Larry Tarkowski had installed in Prescott Valley. And due to the corrugation, it’s best to hum as you ride through it. Singing isn’t bad either – I sound way better in a drainage pipe than I ever have on my own. Some folks also think it’s a great place to paint, at least according to the graffiti artists who made it into the pipe ahead of my honey and me.

The pipe terminates on the west side of Walker Road at one of the only free parking lots in any of the Prescott National Forest recreation areas. This is convenient knowledge, because further down the little drainage are some lovely rock formations, petroglyphs on the north side of the canyon, and a year 'round pool or two. It’s worth checking out when you’re on foot, but a bit rugged by bike.

In any case, we got the honey-meister off of trail 305 and rode back to Highway 69 on the pavement. The part he liked best? “Going downhill on Walker Road really fast.”

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