While we waited for our bike group to assemble, I loaded my mount into Brad's truck. We were heading for an all day bike ride down Bluewater creek and then up a side valley , and over to the Rice park drainage. The trip had been scouted last May during variable spring weather which included a snowstorm. I didn't make that trip, but I was excited about seeing the abandoned sawmill, and the deep holes in the creek. Bluewater creek (really brown water) is the one that feeds Bluewater Lake, but we were upstream from the lake, and here the stream was easily crossed with a jump from one bank to the other, about a 3 foot hop. Most of the drainage I had seen was of a down-cut channel in between muddy or sandy banks. I had never seen the creek deeper than my waist, so I was skeptical about Michael's talk of deep swimming holes in granite canyons. I knew of the sawmill ruins, and the fact that it was pretty much inaccessible by car should have kept it from being looted by visitors. I hoped to see some cast-off artifacts. We drove 15 miles or so to Sawyer, or the site of the former town. It was a thriving center for the task of lumbering the Zuni mountains, and existed in the 1920's and 1930's. Today, there are a few pieces of metal and coal chunks lying around, but the structures are all gone. There are pictures published in old historical texts which show the town to be a railroad repair yard and a collection of log cabins and one-room shacks. There was a post office, but it closed in the 40's when all the trees had been cut, and the fields of waist high grass could no longer support the constant overgrazing practices of the locals who saw a paradise and turned it into a wasteland. The Forest Service took over control of the cleared mountains and meadows, and just now in the 1990's, the trees are coming back with a more conservative self sustaining lumber harvest policy. The lumber people had built a narrow gauge railroad into the Zuni mountains (1895-1945) to remove the harvest, and we have been following and exploring the remaining railways for the last 20 years. The steel tracks were gone by the end of the second world war, but the grades and support woodwork still remain in some of the harder to get to corners of the mountains. Our bikes are good vehicles for this type of exploration. Besides being able to cross any fence, we can negotiate the washed out roads and railroad grades that still stretch into the distance, but have not been maintained since the 40's. Brad led us down the dirt road across the floodplain of the stream, until the road climbed up a narrow neck connecting the slope on the left with a hill in the drainage basin. Ahead we could see miles of shrub covered floodplain, with a winding ditch cut by the barely flowing waters of the Bluewater. Michael went on about the swimming holes, but I imagined a nearly dried up wallow in the muddy waterway that one could better get a mud bath, than a plunge into crystal waters glistening in the sun. Suddenly, he stopped us on the floodplain and declared that we should turn now to head for the trees over there behind a hill. We snickered at each other and argued that there was nothing worth riding a mile over the bumpy road to, but went along. Around the corner I saw the granite forms coming out of the ground. They were angled by the fault that cut through the area during the uplift of the range 65 million years ago. But they were only knee high sticking out of the muddy soil. Further around the corner they were more jagged and craggy but not that high. As he stopped, and got off his bike, he walked closer and down into a canyon 40 or 50 feet deep with the canyon bottom flooded. I realized that the fault had lifted the granite rock just in that place, a half mile or so along the stream bed, and the water had cut down into the pocket of granite making a beautiful and hidden granite gorge with multiple deep swimming holes. We all gasped, staring at the wonder that we in 20 years, had never seen or heard about. This was the best spot for swimming in the Zunis we had ever seen. There was talk of disease in the water from the fact that cattle may have polluted it, and concern that the water was stagnant. There was even talk that this wasn't Bluewater because it didn't have a muddy shore and brown water, maybe a side canyon coming into the main channel. We saw the waterfalls, I knew it was not stagnant, and Michael was stating that this was Bluewater, "Only Bluewater has water flowing like this in the late summer!". As the conference went on, I decided I would take a closer look, and upon examination, I figured the best way to test the waters was to get in. The water was clear, about 3 feet visibility, and cool but not body-numbing cold, maybe about 60 to 65 degrees. We have noticed that when the water gets stagnant and too warm in these mountains, it grows snails that produce worms that will burrow into your skin giving a condition called swimmer's itch. None of that here. Soon all 6 of us were in the cool waters swimming, splashing, and hooting with joy like little boys about the reality of Michael's fabled "deep holes". After a refreshing immersion, we resumed our journey towards the Sawmill. Further down the stream, and the left canyon wall brought a side canyon into the main canyon. The canyon walls were not too high maybe a couple hundred feet, but the rock that made up the canyons was a bright, brick-red, fine-grain sandstone called the Abo. As the mountains were uplifted they pushed up the overlying layers and today the harder rocks form rows of cliffs as you move back from the granite core toward the margin of the uplift. We rode up the side canyon, along red cliffs and green shrubbery contrasting with the azure blue of the summer sky. The dirt trail wound us around another cliff and soon we were passing by another sandstone ledge. This one was an impressive tannish cliff edge with many large eroded boulders and a few arches hiding under and in the overhanging rock forms. Around the corner again, and we rode up on top of the tannish Mesita Blanca layer. We saw the downslope path, heading for the sawmill site ahead, and a couple guys mentioned how nice that swim was and that maybe we could come back for another dip. We decided to delay the sawmill visit and first visit the Rice Park valley and see if last May's runoff pond still had any water in it. The ride took a half hour to traverse the eroded path formerly called a road. We finally dropped into a wide forested valley and rode down to the place where we had seen a 50 acre pond in May. Dry. The water was gone, but the meadow that contained it was bright with thousands of small golden yellow flowers. Now cattle grazed slowly and content that there was plenty of grass and no hurry to eat it. They stood in a meadow that had been under at least 10 feet of water 3 months ago. We sat under a group of pines and ate lunch as the breeze pushed just enough clouds through the sky to make it an interesting scene to gaze at. As we drank a few beers I brought, Brad declared the Rice Park "bar" was open. He pulled out his flask of rum and we talked and laughed through the relaxing summer paradise, reclining in the dense, soft mixture of pine needles and thick woodland grass. Soon we were all rested and ready to retrace our trip along the fading dirt roadways, across the eroded slopes and uneven slickrock slabs to the clifftop rendezvous. We started down the slope shaded by small pines and gooseberry shrubs. Pedalling uphill was a slow procedure for me, but the downhill runs were an experience of bumping over the dirt and feeling the warm air blow through my drying hair and shirt. I had dipped the clothing in the water and it was just reaching the end of its cooling-by-evaporation stage. We stopped at the top of the hill with another valley drainage and the sawmill ruins just in front and below us. We could see the ruined building all around. They were all log cabins whose walls had collapsed after the roof fell in. There weren't any artifacts, although I did find a few rusted out evaporated milk cans. No glass bottles, I guess I didn't find the official dump though I tried. There must have been 15 smaller cabins, houses maybe. And at the bottom of the hill was the big building that must have been the mill itself. When they left, they took everything but the structures which have all caved in during the last 50-60 years. Next, we had planned to return to the granite gorge for another swim. That meant bushwhacking up to a low point on the ridge before us, and then a descent to the Bluewater canyon/valley just over the ridge. The trip up wasn't bad, but the descent had to be accomplished down the bottom of a deep v-shaped valley. The rock was broken and crumbly and easily slipped upon if you weren't careful. Pushing the bikes along was not too much trouble, and sometimes you could lean on the bike for balance as you walked/slid down, ducking low-hanging trees and bushes. When the path leveled out, we were able to ride the last mile to the gorge and jumped in again. This time the sun had moved and the sunniest spot was near the deepest part of the swimming hole. Brad and I tried diving down to see how far the bottom was, and we found the deepest spot to be between 8 and 9 feet. I found a few spots to climb up and jump in, but mostly the rocks were so sharp and steep that we just floated and paddled around in the refreshing liquid. After floating or standing on a particular spot for a period of time, we could feel the nibbling touches of the local crawfish. Brad moved away saying he did not want the creatures to nibble on the various parts of his naked anatomy. The dip revived us, and we sped back to the truck, finishing the day with 25.5 miles recorded, and a coming sunset to follow us home. Alfredo Mirabal, the rancher, stopped us on the way out, wondering whose vehicle was parked all day in his field. Brad thanked him for allowing us to park and Alfredo responded by feeling relieved that we weren't there to destroy or steal . He told us "No problem" to the request for more bike rides in the future. We popped open another home brew and drove home pleased at the success of the outing.