In Santa Fe the trails are caked by snow and mud. Head south 60 miles and drop a couple of thousand feet, and this is what you get.

New Mexico mountain biking at its best. The White Mesa loop is fast and flowing, with a few technical hurdles, some exposed ledges and a couple of grunty climbs.

Inter-planetary exploration.

Post-spill. Nancy back on the bike, front wheel trued back to life. We later found a second hand replacement - a Mavic 317 laced to a Specialized hub - for $30 at the excellent Broken Spoke in Santa Fe.

The trail is well signed, and can be ridden in either direction.

A short hike 'n bike earns some bonus singletrack and an off-the-saddle steep descent.

Amy, on her green-rimmed, Voodoo 29er. This is perfect big wheel country.

Riding the Dragon's Spine.

White Mesa was my first time out on the Ogre. Next time I'll bring my bikepacking gear - the area would make for some awesome camping and incredible starry nights.

Sweet singletrack on the way back to the trailhead.

Downtown Albuquerque. The largest city in New Mexico, ABQ is surprisingly bike friendly. The Paseo del Bosque runs from north to south of the metropolitan area, amongst the cottonwoods of the Rio Grande. There's plenty of singletrack to be unearthed along the river trails too, and quick access to the Cedro Peak National Forest.

Welcome to big sky, Western Texas. This passing freight train, tugging an endless tail of cargo across the high desert, reminded me of the role played by the railroad in 19th century frontier history. Border skirmishes continue to wage on today, albeit in a different form. What little traffic there is seems primarily made up of Border Patrol trucks, scouring the area for illegal Mexican immigrants, with regular manned inspection points checking for drugs.

A mural in Alpine depicting the Rio Grande, which flows from Colorado to the Gulf of Mexico. Since 1948 - following the US invasion of Mexico - a stretch of this 1900 mile river has formed the border between Texas and Chihuahua. In the sprawl of El Paso a massive, foreboding fence divides the two nations. Down in remote Big Bend, it looks like it would be as easy as wading across the river to cross into Mexico.

To break up the journey we paused in Marfa, once a railroad water stop, and now a popular hangout with New York hipsters. Cavernous gallery spaces occupy almost every streetcorner in this Texan backwater. The most notable is the famous Chinati Foundation, the catylist for the emergence of this now thriving oasis of art and culture. Nearby Alpine and Marathon are other small settlements with an increasingly liberal, artistic feel.

Texas heat is best tempered by ice tea. Ordering from this trendy little cafe involved walking through the old fashioned Tumbleweed Laundromat, where NPR was playing on the radio.

Marfa. Home to characterful residents.

Big Bend takes some determination to reach. Pushing on through the night, we past the border town of Presidio and camped beside the Rio Grande, literally a stone's throw from Mexico. By morning we'd reached Lajitas, marked by this unexpectedly swanky, Wild West-themed resort and golf course. Even if you're not packing your irons, be sure to indulge in a cinnamon roll at the adjoining bakery.

At last. Time to stretch out stiffened limbs and prep the bikes in the Texas sun for our 4 day, lightweight loop of Big Bend Ranch.

Desert sustenance.

Supplemented with trail munchies. With the window on my new framebag, it's easy to keep a tab on how many there are left...

Our steeds, ready to roll. The nerdy might have noted that one of the two is sporting unusually large wheels. For now, I've swapped out my faithful Troll for its 29er brethren, an Ogre, on loan from the kind folks at Surly. More on this big wheeled monster in a future post...

Big Bend Ranch State Park is crammed with tracks of all shapes and sizes. Surfaces range from fast, well-graded doubletrack...

... to rough, rolling, baby-head strewn jeep trails...

There's plenty of well-groomed singletrack too...

... with fun, twisting trails to negotiate.

The overlying theme? Rugged solitude. We didn't see another soul the whole time we were in the park, except at Sauceda Ranger Station.

More often than not, these fellows were our companions, the characterful and rather phallic-looking rainbow cacti.

Or these little chaps, miniature barrel cacti.

Another Big Bend resident. Spindly, spikey occatillo, traditionally used to make fences.

Colourful opuntia - paddle cacti - that can turn a shade of burgundy in winter.

Whoah there. We come in peace.

With so many thorny creations mining the trail, it's a good idea to run sealant in your tyres, either in the inner tubes or by going tubeless.

Carrying plenty of spare tubes and a stash of patches is recommended...

Big Bend Ranch is a land of ancient, extinct volcanos and steep sides canyons. Crazy rock formations abound.

Taking a break near the Rincon Trailhead.

... and back on the road once more.

The view down the valley from Pilla Montoya, into the Mexican mountains beyond...

The trail past Papalote Encino, a back route to Sauceda Ranger Station.

On the whole, the park is easy to navigate. A few abandonned signposts had our brows furrowed for a few moments.

A GPS would be useful, but we were fine relying on the park's detailed topographical map, a highlighter and a compass.

Riding the dreaded wash. Although the trails regularly dip down and climb out of sandy arroyos - dry river beds - with careful routeplanning and lightweight packing, there's little pushing involved. Trails like the Rincon Loop stay high and skirt round the worst of the Fresno Canyon, the main offender for energy-sapping sand.

Somewhat surprisingly for this swathe of the Chihuahuan Desert, sourcing water isn't a major issue. There are a couple of reliable springs in the park, as well as several water towers positioned in strategic locations. It's always worth checking with the ranger station for the latest on what's dry and what's not.

We carried iodine tabs, boiling water for dinner.

Old Madrid House, where a clump of cottonwoods marked a welcome spring.

Weather-wise, winter is generally a great time to visit Big Bend. Time your trip a little later, March to April, and you might even experience the flowering of desert cacti.

Still, the temperatures fluctuated enough to require a full compliment of layers - we read it can change by as much as 40 degrees. As usual, Nancy styles it up out on the trail.

In fact, a couple of days were particularly cold and blustery. A 50mph wind whipped through the valley, so we secured the tarp to anything and everything we could find.

There are secluded campsites dotted throughout the park. The charge is a very reasonable $5 a site - which gets you a fire pit and a bench - or you can wild camp in designated zones for $3.

Although a traditional rack and pannier setup is fine for the many miles of jeep trails, a bikepacking style rig is the best option for singletrack attacks. Pack light, as some of the trails can be rocky and awkward in places, and require the odd carry. Here's Nancy's Troll, with Porcelain Rocket bags, plus extra water bottles mounted to her front shock. Suspension was welcome on some of the rougher trails.

Tacking advantage of the Ogre's rock-munching, 29er wheelset, I stuck with a rigid fork, allowing me to mount two Salsa Anything cages to its eyelets. These lightweight cages are perfect for a Thermarest or groundsheet, though you need to be extra careful when laying the bike down.

Travel light. No panniers required.

Makes those awkward little pushes a touch easier...

More big, open spaces as we head out on the Oso Loop. The park isn't as flat as it looks here, with elevations ranging from 2300 to 4500 ft.

And more quirky little rainbow cacti watching us go by.

Sublime camping at Mexicano 2.

Another round of instant porridge for breakfast. Yum.

And another bikepacking staple. Almond butter, lacquered on to bagels and smothered with honey. The cyclist's alternative to jet fuel.

The ride back out onto the Madrid Falls Road after a star-clustered night.

Heading back towards Fresno Canyon.

A couple of cold, overcast and windy days had us wrapped up in all our layers. But as soon as the winter sun popped out, it was shorts and T shirt weather. This was the Texas we'd come for.

And so was this. Sweet serpentine singletrack on Government Trail.

One last loop around the rollercoasting Contrabando Dome Trail, in an area once mined for precious quicksilver - later known as mercury.

And then... time to bid 'gracias y adios' to the Chihuahuan Desert.

During my brief stay in Victoria, British Colombia, I made the most of a cold but dry snap to explore a small corner of Vancouver Island: Juan de Fuca National Park. Here, the rainforest creeps right down to the seashore. Raging surf draws hardy, wetsuit-clad surfers the length of this beautiful coastline and you can see the US' Olympic Mountains across the waters.

A totem pole at Port Renfrew, carved in Western Red Cedar, the provincial tree of the BC First Nations People.

Typical Pacific North Coast scenery; wild, abandoned, unspoilt.

In Botany Bay, lichen hangs like tufts of hair from the trees, absorbing moisture from the air. Rather than being a parasite, it produces its own food through photosynthesis.

Over these weeks, I've whittled my gear down to the bare minimum, and left excess baggage in Los Angeles. Here's the Surly Troll, sporting a full Porcelain Rocket framekit. My latest setup evolution is a pair of 120g Salsa Anything Cages that have added extra capacity, without undue weight.

These adaptable cages can be hose clamped around suspension forks, and are perfect for light, bulky items, like a Thermarest. Incidentally, many Salsa and Surly rigid forks these days are sporting triple eyelets, especially for the Anythings.

This two-nighter was also a chance to test out my new Porcelain Rocket framepack, with its extra wide flare.

My ride took me from Port Renfrew through balding mountains to Lake Cowichan. I'd hoped this logging route would be gravel, but it had been paved in recent years. Enticing tracks turned off in every direction. With a GPS and a stash of food, there's a world of off-pavement exploration to be experienced out here.

Where the forest hadn't been cleared, I strained to see much further than a few metres through thick groves of deadfall trees, ferns and moss on either side of the road.

In Lake Cawichan, I turned off pavement to join a 122km section of the Trans Canada Trail. When this project is finished, it will cover 16 500km of inter-connected trails from coast to coast.

As always, it felt good to be away from traffic, even if this former converted railway trail could have done with the odd turn here and there...

Four railway trestle bridges span gaping chasms along the route, the last of which was only renovated last year.

Each affords views of clear, torrid waters and lush forest far below. Too cold for a dip at this time of the year, though...

Almost claustrophobic in places, parts of the trail run straight as an arrow...

... along - appropriately enough for Canada in winter - a bed of frozen Maple leaves.

I camped on my second night at the foot of the most impressive of these, the 188m Kinsol Trestle, built in 1920. Back then, the railway was used to transport old growth timber.

Home for the night. A perfect spot, beside the Koksilah River, that some walkers had told me about.

That night, my entire wardrobe doubled up as pijamas. A single skin tarp doesn't provide much insulation and by morning, everything was frozen solid, including me, my water bottles and my food.

Loading up the bike again, with claw-fingered hands. Running such a light setup makes hiking down to inaccesible spots far easier than lugging a bike with a trailer or panniers.

I put my extra wide framepack to good use, stuffing it with a few days of provisions. I'd overlooked the fact that Vancouver Island has the highest concentration of bears and cougars in BC, and forgotten to bring any cord to hang my food...

Shrouded behind a veil of mist, the warming beams of sunshine took a couple of hours to finally thaw me out.

Finding uses for my framepacks's see-through sleeve.

Crossing the glassy Saanich inlet, from Mill Bay to Brentwood Bay. Budget traveller's take note. Buy your ticket in advance at Thrifty's supermarket for a two dollar discount.

From here, the Lochside Trail runs parallel to the Salish Sea, all the way to Victoria. It passes by Roy, dedicated to the farmers of Blenkinsop Valley.

I made it back to Scott and Naomi's just in time to grab my stuff and hop on the ferry to the Olympic Peninsula's Port Angeles, over the pond in the US.

Taking the shortcut south... As it happened, Caleb, with whom I'd rideshared north from California, was also headed back down the coast. I caught up with his art-packed Audi in Portland, for the 12 hour, night drive to San Francisco...

Welcome to Porcelain Rocket, aka the Cave. A trained ceramic artist, and something of a rocket when out on his bicycle, Scott's unusual but aptly-named business has quietly grown within the bowels of a ramshackle Art Deco home, which itself is in midst of DIY upheaval.

The first step to building a framebag is to draw out a pattern of the bicycle frame in question, marking on details such as water bottle mounts and cable bosses. Inevitably each pattern is different, depending on the bicycle manufacturer, the frame's size, and the material it's made from.

The pattern is then cut out and laid over the fabric, its tracing forming the main panels of the framebag.

Depending on intended use and aesthetic whims, there are various fabrics and colours to choose from, from the burliest of Corduras for expedition riding to lightest of modern packclothes for ultra endurance racing.

Snip snip snip. Steadier hands than mine.

Just in case I might have had aspirations to rustle up my own framebag, I was told in no uncertain words that each pair of scissors has its own purpose. Of the four, these are the fabric shears. Woe betide anyone who confuses them with the snippers for cutting plastic.

Work begins by lamplight...

Scott's machines are all second hand - this one is an old straight stitcher from the '70s. His bartacker came out of the Dallas Cowboy's uniform shop - unfortunately not the Cheerleaders'.

Vrroooom, vrooom...

Time for some zips. These fellas are known as 'Number 10s', and they're the big daddies of the zip world.

One side completed. This one has a dual compartment and is built with extra tough fabric.

Each panel is lined with a piece of foam, to help provide structure and protect innards. Although these black and white shots don't show it, this particular liner is actually a tasteful shade of Hot Pink...

Take 5. Kaboom calls for a break.

Then it's back to the sewing machine to work on the other side, which features a shallow map sleeve and a see-through storage compartment.

This done, the spine of the bag is then traced out onto a ballistics fabric, chosen for its high abrasion resistance.

Velcro strips are sewn in, to secure the bag in place within the frame.

Each one is carefully positioned to avoid cable bosses and stops, which have been marked out by the frame's pattern.

Back to the machine once more...

Sewing in the main construction stitch - suddenly, it's starting to take shape.

Corner and intricate stitches require working the machine manually.

The framebag's still inside out, but almost there. Note the massive, padded flair at the front for extra storage capacity.

Excess fabric falls to the ground as the bag is trimmed, and then finished with seam ribbon.

And last but not least, the moment of truth: the 'rabbit out of the hat trick'. Scott grapples with the framebag to turn it the right way round.

Framepack builder cradles finished product. Job done.

A final splash of colour... The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. It's a perfect fit!

Not quite like home: how they do Christmas in California.

It's late afternoon before we leave the wizard's wand-like manzanitas of Idyllwild. It's been well worth the detour here, even if camping conditions have been icy cold. On our last night, we pitch the tarp behind the town's cute little movie theatre, the ideal place to keep warm watching a late night, $5 film.

We couldn't skip town without one final visit to Honey Bunn and Joe's. This quirky little hangout is home to local artist instillations and delicious pastries - cinnamon rolls being a favourite, and only $2 if you're happy to have them 'day old'.

Needless to say, by the time we succumb to a departing singletrack loop - linking the May Valley dirt road with Bonita Vista - we don't make it far that day. There's plenty of good camping in the National Forest above Lake Hemit.

Tackling tight and turning singletrack is a good test for the Tout Terrain Mule, which takes a few knocks as it catches down the bouldery turns. Despite a few scrapes, the kickstand does its job at protecting my Ortlieb bag.

Then, it's back on pavement for a road stint along 74, the Pines to Palms Highway.

From here, we turn off into Burnt Valley, where amongst all ranch signs, this one catches my eye. It reminds me of the house my family once lived in, Another Old Rectory, so named for all the Rectory's dotted about the Dorset countryside.

Then it's back on dirt, negotiating steep climbs, woven with tyre-grabbing water-snakes, on a trail that meanders amongst giant, discarded boulders.

Away from traffic, music helps keep the legs turning and the mind motivated. The wonders of technology: a thousand songs for just 12.5 grams of weight. As ever, Nancy adds a little colour co-ordination...

We pick up the Californian Hiking and Biking Trail, on the recommendation of Brendan, from the Hub Cyclery in Idyllwild.

Paralleling the long distance Pacific Crest Trail in places - which is closed to mountain biking - it's exactly what we're after.

I always sigh a breathe of relief when we hit dirt. We have the road to ourselves once more. Pavement is a good way to clock up miles, but I feel more at home when there's dust in my tyres.

From what I understand, plans are afoot to link up a corridor of public land across the whole of California. It has all the potential for a fantastic traverse of the state, passing through Joshua Tree National Park. In the US, singletrack is closed to mountain biking in National Parks, but there are hopes Congress will be passing a law to allow limited mountain biking access there.

Like a scene from the Great Divide...

In fact, it's one of the best stretches of track we've ridden in a while. Each climb answered by a fast, swoopy descent.

We spend a happy, hazy, dusty late afternoon riding.

The Hiking and Riding Trail crosses Chihuahua Valley Road, named after a solitude-seeking Mexican herdsman from Chihuahua. From here, the flora takes on a different character, as we enter Indian Flats on the Puerta La Cruz Truck Trail, cut in the '30s.

We camp for the night in a grassy clearing by the trail. It's good to be warm again, now that we've dropped a couple of thousand feet since Idyllwild.

Then its onwards, along a boulder-strewn path, through hardy chaparrel scrub and shrubland.

Finally, a paved road drops us down through the Lost Valley, depositing us onto Highway 79. We descend upon the gas station at Warner Spring to feed, water and charge up various electronic devices.

It feels like the beginning of a more well-to-do, upscale California. With its terracotta tiles, the adobe Chapel of Saint Francis, dating back to 1830, might have been lifted straight from the Tuscan foothills.

And in contrast, the Hideout Saloon... We're invited in to the burly Harley fold to warm up with hot apple cider.

Climbing up above Lake Henshaw.

From Mesa Grande, we turn off onto the twisting, turning Black Canyon dirt road.

A massive descent leads through a Kumeyaay reservation down to Ramona. This Native American word means 'ledge' - the people who live at the edge of the ocean...

Again, the scenery shifts in tone and colour. A magical tunnel of old growth Red Oaks line our path, letting only the softest of light seep in.

We've now well and truly left the desert, and there's a winteriness in the air. It's late afternoon, so we camp a few miles outside of Ramona in a cosy woodland glade. From here on we'll be hitting the thick of suburban sprawl, and we're expecting wild camping to be more limited. Brendan has told us about the San Diegito River Trail system, so we're hoping to eek out our dirt for 10 more miles towards the coast.

The next morning however, spitting rain soon crescendos to a relentless downpour. It's forecast to rain all day, so we decamp in the Ramona Cafe, drowning our sodden sorrows in one of its magnificent, 1/2 pound cinnamon rolls. There, a kindly waitress puts the word out that we're looking for a floor to sleep on and Chris, one of the diners, comes to our rescue. Except it's even better than we could have hoped for. Wishing us a Merry Christmas, he sets us up with a night in a cabin in the nearby, beautiful Dos Picos County Park. It's veritable luxury: toasty warm and dry!

We try out luck with the Foster Truck Trail. for a more direct route to San Diego. Unfortunately, as good a job as Googlemaps has done to navigate us across the country, it doesn't diferentiate between private roads and those that are open to the public. Time and time again our efforts have been thrwated by gates and padlocks, decorated with threatening signs promising criminal prosecution for trespassers. It's a shame, as the highway alternative heaves with traffic: it's a means of reaching a destination, rather than an enjoyable journey.

Coupled with the unwelcome Californian rain, we end up forgoing our final dirt track detours and making a beeline direct to the city. It's not the most enjoyable ride, but still, there's no taking away from the elation of reaching the Pacific Ocean. Our arrival is celebrated with a fantastic seafood medley by the sea, courtesy of Denbigh and Annika, who invite us into their home for the night. Thanks!

My parents visited this area in the 1972. Some 40 years later, the Joshua Tree Inn, where they stayed, is still open for business. It's well known amongst country rock aficionados as the motel in which Gram Parsons passed away, and is popular with visiting musicians.

Gram-morabelia.

Gram's room, no 8, available to sleep in - for those don't believe in spirits... It's complete with some of the original furniture from 1973, the year of his death.

Built in the '50s, the Joshua Tree Inn is a quiet, beautifully kept motel. We treat ourselves to a room for a night, after its kind, chilled-out manager Marcu - sporting impressive, waist-length dreadlocks - offers us a mid-week special. In fact, we're even upgraded, ending up in the timewarped John Barrymore suite, so named for its popularity with the 30s actor - grandfather of Drew Barrymore. Even cooler, it's the room in which John Wayne always stayed when he was in the area.

Sadly, the highway must have bloated in size over the ensuing years - there's no shoulder for cyclists and it's thick with traffic. Backroads offer far more enticing riding and camping opportunities. Once the storm has past and the Californian sun is shining once more, we detour up to Pioneer Town.

This characterful place began its life as a Wild West film set, back in the 1940s. Now it's just as known now for Patty and Harriet's bar, a small venue that draws top musicians, who are often recording in nearby studios.

Good to know: wheelmen will find chocolate tablets very beneficial.

Then it's back on the road again, ever searching for ways to avoid the 29 Palms Highway. Little Morongo Canyon Road soon becomes sand, as we enter a valley shared with a last few, lingering Joshua Trees.

Cyclists take note. This whole desert traverse has been something of a goathead medley - a particularly tenacious, vindictive thorn that preys on inner tubes. Tyre sealant is a must - you can see where two puncture wounds have been successfully plugged, keeping us rolling.

The Powerline Road descends for several miles, looping through the steep-sided Morongo Canyon. A lengthy push through sand slows our progress to tortoise-pace, so we opt to camp for the night.

Deep in the canyon, the winds are gusting up again, throwing tumbleweeds in our path. After struggling to get the tarp up, we pillage the canyon for every available rock in the hope of keeping it down, and stop it sailing back off into the desert.

Finally, we're ejected out of our sandy wash into well-to-do suburbia. Tucked away amongst the luxury complexes in Desert Hot Springs, our budget noses sniff out a retro spa, where the rich, swooning voice of Engelbert Humperdinck pipes out of the loudspeaker. $7 gets us the use of a series of hot springs, an icy-cold plunge pool, a massive outdoor swimming pool, as much mineral water as we can drink, and some truly surreal conversation. 'You can live to 130 these days, as long as keep on swapping out body parts,' says one, prune-like old timer we share a soak with.

How many? It's no wonder our campspot was a little windy. This area is well known for its gusty conditions, thanks to cool coastal and hot desert airs mixing. Stork-like wind turbines are everywhere.

Google Maps guides us on a dirt road that wends its way right between the blades of this enormous wind farm.

Finally, we pop us out parallel to the monstrous Interstate 10, linking San Diego with Florida. Pushing on past sunset, we camp out for the night on high ground, mesmerised by the endless stream of headlights that flicker by throughout the night.

Come morning, our alternative route is a little scraggly round the edges, but a whole lot quieter.

In fact, sometimes it feels like real backcountry riding - even though we're just a few hundred feet from such a seething mass of cars and trucks.

We stop for a snack under a diplodocus - it's not often you can say that. In fact, this dinosaur-themed cafe was one of the locations for 'Pee-wee's Big Adventure', a zany film that recounts Pee-wee Herman's search for his stolen bicycle.

We make our way through Banning to Hemit, a low lying valley that's bountiful with produce. Sold by the roadside, buckwheat honey, dates, sweet potatoes and persimmons - sweet fruit masquerading as rotting tomatoes - all take our fancy.

The grapefruits here are particularly tasty and remind me of my time riding through the Copper Canyon, North Mexico. That night we stay with Sue and Keith, our Warm Showers hosts, two teachers who battle daily against the car-centric tide on their bicycles.

A few miles out of town we turn off onto the Old Control Road. It snakes its way up into the San Jancinto Mountains, climbing steeply for 10 miles to Idyllwild, almost 4000 feet above Hemet.

There, we arrive in a world of giant boulders, mangrove-like manzanitas and towering sugar pines - known to grow to a couple of hundred feet - and their babyhead-sized cones.

It's a beautiful, often overlooked swathe of forest home to the Pacific Crest Trail - one of the US' long distance hiking routes - that abounds in folksy wooden cottages and cabins, tucked away amongst the pines. In fact, our first night is spent with Karen, a PCT hiker herself, who puts us up, feeds us, and sends us packing with all manner of tasty, lightweight hiking food.

Idyllwild: the place where the pine needles gather.

Most known for its climbing, Idyllwild also boasts great mountain biking trails. We head over to the local framebuilder, Siren Cycles, to check out his wares. Amongst a collection of racey aluminium softtails, this steel, long-distance 29er catches my eye.

It features an elegant, curved top tube and internal framerouting.

Brendan, Siren's framebuilder and ownver of the Hub Cyclery - a goodies-packed bike shop with a roaring log fire - recommends enough local singletrack to keep us busy for a couple of afternoons.

The trails around May Valley Road weave their way between pines and manzanitas, squeezing between boulders, twisting and turning every which way.

There's no finer manner to round off a ride in Idyllwild than a trip to the arty, eclectic Honey Bunns and Joe cafe. Should you be passing by, we can heartily recommend the toasty-warm, generously-proportioned cinnamon roles...

My Troll includes a well used Rohloff hub, a 2004 Marzocchi Mx Comp air/coil fork and Avid BB7 brakes. I have a Porcelain Rocket framebag, an Ortlieb bar bag, and I'm towing a Tout Terrain Mule suspended trailer - giving me plenty of capacity for food and kit.

Nancy's bike has derailleur gears, a Rock Shox Recon coil-sprung fork, Jeff Jones aluminium H-loop bars and Avid BB7 brakes. Her gear is carried courtesy of a full Porcelain Rocket bikepacking setup.

Welcome to the mystical land of the Joshua Trees.

We spent our first night camped behind a boulder field outside the park. Peace and quiet was broken only by an intrepid desert mouse, who sniffed about our belongings in the hope of a midnight snack, before being trapped and unceremoniously ejected from the tent.

We're in. $5 a bike gets you a week in the park.

In my mind's eye, the trees seemed to gather around us, as if forming a welcoming party, ushering us into their land.

We wound our way amongst them, making our introductions...

Straddling both the Mojave and the Colorado deserts, the park is filled with all manner of wondrously shaped creations. And I don't mean Nancy...

Most have ingenious, prickly ways of protecting themselves.

Some are squat and portly.

Others more pointy.

A few have found homes in improbable places.

I'd love to return in the spring, when the whole desert begins to flower.

The blossoms of the Joshua Trees are creamy white. Some trees tower 40ft in height, and might have come straight from the pages of a Dr Seuss book.

Over a 200 year life span, each develops its own character. This one seems both playful on the one side, and downcast on the other.

A main paved loop runs through the park...

... with a few dirt road detours.

We spent two, crisp cold nights there. I'd liked to have stayed longer.

Although the park is named after its trees, the rock formations there are just as remarkable.

Hidden Valley is littered with huge boulders, as if tossed aside by a passing giant.

And just like the trees, each rock has a persona too.

Infested with cracks and slabs, they're popular with climbers, who cling to the rough granite, ant-sized in the distance. Fall and Spring are good times to climb and bike, as summer temperatures can reach 120F...

Even without climbing gear, it's fun to scrabble about.

Leaping from boulder to boulder, in the aptly named Wonderland of Rocks.

A truly enchanting place.

So long Joshua Trees, until the next time...

Nancy and a baby J-Tree.

Gangly Cass and a monster gangleon.

Crazy rock shadows inspire crazy rock shadow dances...

And crazy tooth-brushing techniques.

Biking with our bendy pals.