dateline: dahlonega, nevermore than 12 miles from downtown.
Jon from Dahlonega Wheelworks gave me a ride for tomorrow and I drove out into the woods out of internet access last night. Visited @ his shop for a little while but left the shine in the mason jar as I was not feeling well so much so that I made Wed a rest day.
His ride was from the N end of greater Bull mtn locale. I primitive camped along side a small babling stream about 1 mile from 5th rangers Army base. Cleaned up campsite area. Walked some roads, knee felling no pain.
Black bean burritos w/ salsa, cheddar cheese, pineapple, & tomato basil tortillas; one of my standard dinners.
Weather forecast was for rain later in the week but several times during the night rain splattered on my roof. The bike cover was on before the first drops.
Warm night, no heater on. Laid in bed waiting to see what daylight would look like: should I get up because the weather is rideable or crawl back under covers because it was a non riding day? I make no far reaching prognostication based on bed action. The control panel for the fridge is almost @ eye level when I’m in bed and shines a green led lamp showing its operation. I realized that the light was off and I hadn’t heard the piezo strike or burner ignite. I stopped for propane earlier Wed and turned the fridge off for refill and forgot to turn it back on. Temp raised to 40 degrees; the chicken had to go.
Headed out on ride navigating by map and making whats on the ground match the paper. No freeze thaw mud because of low elevation and warm spring temps, just normal rain wetted red dirt turns to slippery sticky mud. Darn stuff clings to tires after ride is over. 12.44 miles on mostly old overgrown logging roads, these are the real old logging roads
using these small old trucks. Suspect the roads were cut w/ cats w/ cables & pulleys years b4 the D9 of today’s roads. Jim Thorpe has its American Standard trail because someone littered an American Standard toilet. Bull mtn could assume another name like ’39 International?
Drove back to bike shop hoping brake part would have arrived on day 2 of 2 to 3 day priority mail. No luck. Enjoyed sips of ‘shine again. Left muddy bike hoping that late mail would arrive and I left for a shower @ local health club and buy groceries. Cleaned and stocked up but no part. Loaded bike up. Jon gave me a ride for tomorrow @ S end of Bull mtn but joins Turner Creek from today’s northern ride. Forecast is for serious rain & thunderstorms.
Camped @ Jake mtn horse camp where I stayed 2 days prior. All alone. Some camp sites are newly formed. I followed a reclaimed logging road into a clear cut landing which explained the new campsites. Nothing regrowing on bared land. A skidder road fall line dropped into a small drainage & climbed even steeper uphill.
What an idea: Build single track mtn bike trails in forests disturbed by logging. The land has already been abused per the logging & road building specs such that even a machine cut trail would do little extra harm to recovering land. The FS would benefit because people would see the forest recovering after the logging and think that logging wasn’t all that bad because look at these great trails were are riding. It would be like walking in a corn maize as the corn grows up. Our constructed trails would not be like the steep angle eroding skidder road.
Cool evening, kept the slider door open throughout dinner, chilly but enjoyable for an open door. Killed my first fly 2 days ago. Tonight several other insects are inside around the light. Bug season has arrived.
So it be.
