Walking the old roads

View from the road

 I saw what looked like a great lookout point from Google Earth and I decided to go there.  Bill was going to join me on this adventure but he was late so I left without him.  The old road is growing Scot's broom.  Great, decommissioned roads turn to Scot's broom and since they are decommissioned it's going to be difficult for crews to get in and kill the Scot's broom.  It's also going to be really hard to hike up this road when the broom grows in just a little bit more.  Alder and dung mosses should be growing on old road beds instead of broom.

The road is not as savagely decommissioned as the road next to Brown Creek. Who ever decommissioned the road up Brown Creek, I hope they never get another job.  That road is so difficult to walk on now and they really tore up the land cutting down trees and making gaping holes in the road.  The road I went up today was not so bad.  The hay is now gone and that helps.  I wonder though, if the Scot's broom seeds came in on the hay?

Getting to the view point was challenging because there was an unexpected obstacle, a grove of slide alder.  I thought I had been through enough with the broom and the destroyed road bed, it just was not fair that I now had to go through a slide alder jungle!

When I got to the view point at last, I saw there was not much of a view.  The trees have grown up.  Time to go up there with a chain saw I guess.  It was really windy so I did not linger at the view point for long.  I decided to brew my coffee in a less windy spot.  Just as I started to head back into the jungle I heard an emergency whistle.  I knew that it must be Bill.  So he had made it to the trail head after all.

I called out "Bill" and after a bit I heard him say yes it was him and he called out the name Lisa.  Then I made Patches bark a whole bunch so Bill could find his way to us through the slide alder.  I guess I should put my whistle in my backpack for when I don't have Patches.  My pack does not have a sternum strap or a hip belt so I have no use for a combined whistle/belt clasp.

My homemade day pack is still going strong.  I have to patch it up from time to time and I have an idea for how to make a much stronger pack, but for now I'm happy just patching my pack up every once in a while.  Making a whole new pack would be a lot more work.

When we got back down to our bikes Bill decided to bomb down the road but I decided to go much slower.  Patches is 72 years old, that's too old to bomb down the hills.  When she was a younger dog I would bomb down the hills on my bike and then stop and wait for Patches.  But she's too old to put through that now.  So I only went as fast as Patches was comfortable going for the last 1.5 miles.  It was pitch dark for that last bit and I would have liked to have gotten out of there quicker.

When I got back down to my Landrover I saw that Bill's Subaru Forester was gone, but his bike was still there.  I assumed that Bill was down in the ravine getting water or something.  I loaded up my bike and then called Bill's name.  It was then than I realized the Bill had left his bike behind!  I did not want to wait and see if he would come back for it, so with much effort I loaded it up on top of my bike and took it home.

The old roads offer wonderful solitude but not as many photography opportunities.  So I don't have many pretty pictures to share in this blog post.

Patches is limping this morning and she brought home about a dozen blood thirsty hitch hikers.

hiking miles
9 with 2,300 feet elevation gain
11 total miles.

Laricifomes officinalis

slide alder

Scotch Broom

Glowing moss in the morning

Woodpecker up a tree in the dark with a flash

Lunch spot