More New Views~

First - more Clear Trail!

I left early, anxious to get out on the trail on a cooler day!  I was stopped almost to Linda's - a work crew was replacing a culvert & had closed the road!  Oh no!  Me... back up & turn the Bronco & trailer around...  not a pretty picture...  I called Linda & she said;  "Have one of the crew turn it for you!"  Now that sounded like a better, quicker idea!  As I started walking that direction, one of the crew was walking toward me!  He said:  I hope you don't mind - but you look like Joan Jet!  I had to laugh - this is the second time this year someone has told me that!  A very nice guy - he had me all turned in about 2 min. flat & laughed, saying that his wife was the same way!  What a nice thing to say!  :-)

If I'd been coming from I-5 - there would have been plenty of signage, but I come in from the east & that direction there were No signs!  Linda was running late too - so it all worked out.  I wanted to see where the logging had been going on, so we took trails that I hadn't been on in a while.  Beautiful.  Linda said she'd been out clearing trail over the weekend & one rider had offered to pay her - rather than work on the trails himself.  Another rider that we both know, did offer her time to come & help.

Wetland

I love this wetland - so calm, quiet & tucked away that most riders don't even know it's here.  We rode past, onto another overgrown trail & into the woods along a deep ravine with huge Cedars along the slope.  Not too much further along & we could see an opening ahead.

We'd arrived~

We followed the access road - to the place were it was cut on up the hillside & took that.  They had brought in a lot of heavy rock, but it was compacted.

Heading up

Talk about open up a view~

On top

There were wood cutters loading up all the left overs from the cut.  We continued on & it was fun to see the mountain that the Monument is on from a different side.  There was a large planting of young Cedars on the trail we took off the top.  So much is planted with Douglas Fir - the Cedar's take a lot longer to mature.

Looking Southeast

Linda eventually wound us back around to Baby Bear Trail.  From there we headed on up to the Monument for lunch & completed our elongated loop!  Now we have new ideas for trails to re-open & I'm going to go & do what I can do & at least I will feel like I'm doing a small portion of my share :-)