Flat out stupid

Sometimes the stupidest ideas for bike adventures turn into amazingly rewarding experiences, often with more than their fair share of toil and suffering. And sometimes, the stupidest ideas are just plain idiotic, like today's mountain bike affair. The profile looked something like this:



Note the total distance of 6.8. That's in miles. In terms of time, this "ride" took 3 hours. And looking at this profile, I was sitting in the saddle for something like 5 of these miles. For the rest, I was pushing, dragging, throwing, and falling upon my bike as we together tried to make our way through several steep burn zones.


The second major hike-a-bike involved dropping 1200' down into a canyon as darkness descended upon the stark landscape.


Why did I take this route? Because I wanted to go to the top of the tallest peak around, and private property makes the logical and far easier route to the summit impossible. The canyon downclimb resulted from my stubborn desire to ride down an ancient mine road that just got steeper and steeper before promptly ending. Not wanting to push my bike back up, I instead pushed it down. I think that was the wrong decision.


But the sunset was nice. And a few giant bull elk showed up to greet me before pounding down a steep slope and disappearing from view.


The moon stuck around long enough to keep me company as I tried to find a faint trail I had ridden a year ago in the bottom of the gulch


And that trail is short but sweet and chunky. The problem is that there's no reasonable way I'm aware of to actually get to this trail unless you're an elk, so I was pleased to get the chance to ride it again, even if it was dark, my bottle was full of ice, and my handlebars were accumulating a thick coating of frost.


Well, despite this being one of the stupider rides I've done, there's some more poking around to be done up there, and I have visions of a long trail descending gently for miles to the north. It's all USFS land . . .