Woodland Getaway

Lately I've been burdened with a lot of stress, bad news from folks I know, and well........just being too busy in general. It kind of wears on ya after awhile and I needed to get away from everything. The chance to head to The Camp was just the ticket I needed.

It didn't hurt that it was a beautiful day either!

The Camp hosted an XC race recently and had about 80 riders, so the trails were well burned in and burnished to a pristine state. Yet, as you can see here, a horse managed to tear up the surface a bit. Mountain bikes are bad for trails.

Yeah right!

Add in the steaming piles of horse dung I had to pass on three occasions to boot. I've always said that if mountain bikers pooped on the trails people would pitch a huge hissy fit. Yet somehow a basketball sized pile of horse dung is okay. Sorry, but I just don't get it. Horse people are cool, but ya'all better be cleaning up yer own "house" before ya'all go tellin' me mountain bikers are "bad" for your trails. Oh yeah, and repair yer "divots" while yer at it!

Well, anyway, I got beyond that and actually enjoyed myself out there today. When I was finished, I was piling my stuff back into the "Truck Without A Name" when a vehicle pulls in next to me with two young "not-quite-men-yet" folks inside. The guys piled out and started kitting up, so I struck up a conversation with them.

Turns out neither of the two had been out riding at The Camp before, so I gave them the low down on the procedures and how to find the trail head. Then I looked at their bikes and smiled. I didn't say anything because, well.......we all started somewhere at the beginning. The one had a mid 90's Mongoose that looked pretty spent and the other had a department store dually in not much better shape.

As I pulled out of the lot, I imagined the two biffing and bailing, and dabbing their way through Broken Finger, arguably the toughest little section of trail anywhere in the state, and how much of an adventure they would have doing it. I thought about how they might be intimidated by that section, and how they would perhaps never forget that ride.

Good times!

I went home satisfied and relaxed. It was good to get away for a bit, but that lawn needed mowing, and it wasn't getting any shorter!