Medski's route not travelled... 23 Sept 10

Well, Medski didn't want to ride with me. He wanted to bore on for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Even slept on top of a mountain pass, rather than sleeping in a bed with his WR all tucked in next to mine in the garage.

So I was feeling pretty sorry for myself. I was feeling even sorrier with the weather and work keeping me cooped up indoors. This afternoon, the weather promised to break a bit, so I grabbed my gear, the bike, and decided to do part of The Medski Route Not Travelled in the area around my little hovel.

Things didn't seem to promising to begin with. Lots of these big ugly clouds hanging around the last three weeks. Even the water in the river is a little dirty right now. If we could but get but some Indian summer this year - which would be nice, considering I got no summer at all this year.

For you fly fishermen out there, the west slope cutties in this run are real suckers for an olive or light blue Wulff, wafted out there on gossamer line attached to a #3 fly rod.



But the clearing trend continued, and soon there was a lot of blue sky up there - first time in weeks. Although, unfortunately, that probably means it is going to freeze any night now.



The old church has seen better days. This isn't the best time of the year for taking pictures on this ride - the leaves have just started changing colors. But the way this year is going, there won't be another chance to catch pictures of fall colors this year.





Then there's the old Perry Creek water wheel. We used to play on it all the time when we were kids, about 45 years ago, back when it was still in the gold diggings on Perry Creek. It has been moved down to the old Galbraith's Ferry site now, where it is displayed quite prominently. Pity they hadn't placed it so you could get pictures of Mount Fisher in the background.



An old road grader on the way up towards the Steeples. My guess would be sometime after the turn of the century.

That would be the LAST century to you young guys.



And The Steeples were strutting their stuff. Just wait another couple of weeks and see what they look like on a sunny day.



Further down the trail, another grassland lake. They have fish in them, but I tend to waste my time fishing on the rivers.



The nice part of riding around here is you're never far from the mountains.



This is Bull Mountain. On the civvy side, my wife (landscape architect specializing in fire based ecosystems) and I are working on a grasslands restoration project here for some neat folks that run a Buddhist retreat on the land. It is also where I hunt bighorn sheep, right at the very tip top of the mountain. I can see a day coming when the old body is just too old to hump everything up there chasing sheep.



And, Bull Mountain continues on. Just over the top is Dibble Glacier.



Well, there would be a bit more, but I got suckered in to some of SheWolf's natural habitat. I am not a mud rider - I get enough of that shyte at work, where more often than not I end up living in it.

Nevertheless, I should have known. After that much rain, I should have known. The picture taking stopped here because I spent the rest of daylight slipping, sliding, spinning, and dabbing my way through miles of wandering, criss crossing 4x4 tire ruts, well greased with slippery mud and well filled with water.

Thus, the inglamorous end to the route Medski never rode...

Wish I would've had more time... Shame I have to be back home next week for that thing starting with a W and ending in ork....

I wish I could see the pictures where the dots are I'm sure they're up to your usual professional standard.
P.S. tried viewing this post in both Firefox 3.6 and IE 8.0.
P.P.S. Mud is yucky. I don't mind that you didn't even try to post pictures of that. Expecting the usual 4" of rain here in 2011.

Boondocker wrote:

I wish I could see the pictures where the dots are I'm sure they're up to your usual professional standard.
P.S. tried viewing this post in both Firefox 3.6 and IE 8.0.

Don't know what to tell you. I checked the thread in the same versions of Firefox and Internet Exploder as you're using - on two computers. The second, my laptop, is military issue and has so many security plug-ins and whatnot that it is sometimes almost useless to get anything done with.

So not sure what to suggest to you at this point.

Quote :

P.P.S. Mud is yucky. I don't mind that you didn't even try to post pictures of that. Expecting the usual 4" of rain here in 2011.

I used to like riding in the mud. Now it is just a pain in the ass which detracts from the sightseeing and adds to the after action cleanup. And of course, when you're busily paying attention to the mud, you aren't enjoying the view and taking pictures.

I saw this same post on ADV, pictures and all, from my home PC. Then I come back here and voila, pictures. I could try to blame my work network earlier today, but I could see other pics. I guess it's just a crapshoot for me. BTW, the pics are up to your usual professional quality