I decided to once again burn the turkey on South Mountain, but this time I brought my bike. I have brand new bike bags that I wanted to test out.
My plan was to push my bike up to the snow line and then hike the rest of the way to the top. Before I arrived at parking I saw that there did not appear to be any snow on the mountain. So I left my boots in the car and pushed my bike up to the top while wearing trail runners. I decided I would do the entire ridge loop since I had my bike and there was no snow.
There has been a lot of logging since the last time I went up. Parts of the route were kind of hard to recognize. Pushing my bike up to the top was a lot of work. When I got to the top with my bike, I was not rewarded with a view, the top was in the clouds. It was very windy at the top too.
I continued along the ridge line and had my lunch in a spot with a slight view of the interior of the Olympics. I visited the tower arrays along the way.
The best view of the day was just on the way back down where the Skokomish valley was spread out at my feet. I could also see Seattle and Mount Rainer in the distance.
It was a long, long coast back down the mountain and I went really slow since I've had more than my share of bike crashes. My hands started to cramp up from braking even with my fancy disk brakes.
Just when I was almost to the bottom I decided to adjust my right hand glove and took my right hand off the handle bar. Of course it was just then then I saw a rock and a pot hole I needed to dodge. I put on my brake with juts my left hand and boom, the bike stopped and I went over the handle bars. I hit my head and scraped my face. Blood was dripping down my nose.
I was 2 miles from the car and I was afraid of going into shock, so I pedaled about a mile before I got out my phone and took a look at my face with the selfie camera. The damage to my face was not as bad as I imagined but it was hard to see with mud and blood on my reading glasses.
I drove home then got a good look in the mirror and decided to go to the walk in clinic at Mason General Hospital, no called "Mason Health". At the walk in clinic they took me to a room and made me wait and wait and wait while they decided if they wanted to treat me or send me the the ER. I don't thein they ever had any intention of treating me there. They stalled and stalled until it was almost closing time for the walk in clinic. Then they told me that I needed to go to the ER instead because I might have a concussion.
I assumed they would put me in a wheel chair and push me to the ER if I was really suspected of being so badly injured. But no, they expected me to walk back out to my car and then drive out onto the street and around the hospital to the ER and then walk into the ER. WTF?? Obviously they did not think I was in too bad of shape!
The ER was thankfully empty and they got me right in but then I had to wait and wait for a doctor to see me. They decided I did not need stitches so they put two Band-Aids on my face and sent me home. I'm a bit pissed off that I was forced to go the the ER to get Band-Aids. Those are going to be some expensive Band-Aids.
I'm a bit pissed off. The trip to the ER is going to cost me a lot of money since my insurance is so crappy that the hospital will not accept its assigned rates. The trip to the ER also cost me a lot of time and potentially exposed me and my minor child to COVID-19. I was certainly exposed to more people that need be when they shuffled me over the the ER instead of treating me at the walk in clinic.
Also going to that ER is a bit triggering for me since I had to take my husband there so many times when he was dying.
4 miles and about 2,500 feet up a good turkey burn.
My clockwise route
A moss that only grows on dung
I think this was all trees the last time I was here
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