Rode right through the burn tonight. I had a new ride "date"; a gal I met at Schweitzer who's on the
K2 developmental race team, races expert. Sure we should have talked today to see if there was a
plan B needed but no we just winged it. It was kind of a "hey lets see how far we can get" moment.
First we see that the trail has acted like a firebreak. Then we are riding through a weird blackened
moonscape.
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There are still smoldering hotspots. In a few places the dozers plowed right through the trail. We
have to stop now and then to move large brush cut down by the crews.
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There's a mop up crew in there, they say it's fine that we are back there. It's dirty,really dirty,
and the displaced pine beetles are biting something nasty. I'm thinking to myself that this will be
really pretty when it greens up next spring. Probably 60-80% of the trail up to the top is burned.
Up at the top it's a big clearing, and then over on the west side there's a bit more. The trucks
have torn up the trails (really, they are messed up jeep roads anyway) as they work on mop up. Worse
tho... the turn off to the "tire turn singletrack whoopdedoo trail" has be wasted by the trucks...
broken rocks and loose dirt everywhere. The utility company had been working under the lines and the
top of the trail had been barely salvaged a few weeks ago. Mary and I skid to a halt and decide not
to hike a bike through the debris, let some burly guys move rocks; we did the small trees.
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That looks like the extent of it. Possible the new single track on the top of the XC course got some
burn but we don't explore, as now that we are out of it we don't want to go back into it. She knows
some bits of the trails that are new to me, and we play on the rocks for the rest of the night. Fun
gal, she went to the same bike camp that I did last year. She shows me a really big slick rock face
to ride down and I follow her right over. We hit the road on the way back, we were not inspired to
ride back through the burn on the way down... normally it's a really fun 2 mile descent with banked
turns, but now it's just dirty dust.
When I walked in, the first thing Mr.Adventure said to me was, Geez you are dirty. It didn't
help that I got a nosebleed on the way home, I think from acrid ash up the nose. It's nicec to
know what's gone on up there, and that themost part of the riding is unscathed, waiting to burn
next year.
Penny