30.3 miles
Bryce O&B
1 hour 47 minutes
70° with little wind
It's actually not tall yet, in fact, it's not even planted, but the local cotton farmers are beginning to stir after their winter fallow season.
With one exception, no matter which direction I ride away from my home in Thatcher, I ride through cotton fields.
Our seasons here in the Gila Valley are marked off by the cycles of planting, cultivating and harvesting cotton. Our "brown" season, winter, is coming to a close as the farmers prepare their fields for planting. A couple of weeks after the spring planting, the cotton plants will emerge and transform our brown valley floor into a patchwork quilt of green cotton plants that stay with us until the fall harvest.
Living among the green cotton fields makes the desert summer heat much more bearable -- even enjoyable. The color is soft and cool on the eyes and when the fields are under irrigation the air temperature drops by five to 10 degrees. It's a pleasure to ride the farm roads flanked by fields of cotton.
Come fall, after the cotton blossoms have transformed themselves into bulging balls of white, the fields turn mostly white. It's the closest we usually come to snow-covered ground.
The Gila Valley is one of the most productive cotton-growing regions in the nation.
Ride on.
Sounds nice. I'm hoping to get my kids down there to see all that cotton this summer.
ReplyDeletesounds great Pops. My knee is getting stronger and stronger for the Phoenix ride. I hear it starts at Red Mountain Park. Sweet!
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