Well Mr. T and I pulled together a bike ride out at Oak Mountain for Saturday, June 28th and decided to not only invite Frank's den but the other WEBELOS dens as well. Turns out they aren't really Boy Scouts either. It was a wonderful morning to be biking and Mr T and I were the only ones to show up. That was okay. We decided to make a big time of it and go until NovaEagle and I were totally whupped since we were the new timers to biking. Mr T succeeded in pulling that off. I was totally exhausted after 2 hours of bike riding along the bottom of the Red Trail.
We first made a quick loop from the South Trailhead with KarateKid as he showed us the race route he had taken a couple of weekends before. We looped back to the South Trailhead then headed down the road to the entrance to the lower loop of the Red Trail on the way to the North Trailhead. Now that was fun. There was big roots and rocks and trees really close together. When you are hiking they don't seem that close but once you add the aspect of speed then they get much closer together.
Taking a mountain bike down a trail really works on your balance. I had to really work on not smacking a tree with my handlebars or running off the trail and down the mountain. Plus lining up on all those bridges only got comfortable toward the end of the ride. Of course I have decided that one needs at least front shock absorbers on a mountain bike. Those roots and rocks really worked on my wrists, elbows and shoulders.
NovaEagle did very well and KarateKid's experience definitely showed up. I couldn't keep up with him on the trails. At one point NovaEagle and I just bonked and we had to stop and chow on some GORP to get our energy back. It was a humbling experience. We made it on to the North Trailhead though and decided to come back via the highway. That was a good decision. NovaEagle had a smaller bike than the rest of us but he pushed hard and was able to stay up with us to the end.
We all had a great time and are looking forward to the next ride.
Well Frank from another den invited our den to go on a hike with them out at Oak Mountain State Park (OMSP). So on the Saturday morning of June the 14, the day of the hike, all of the so called Boy Scouts start calling in saying they can't make it. Now just because it is raining buckets of water outside doesn't seem like a valid reason to cancel a Boy Scout hike so Mr T and I head on out to the North Trailhead like real Boy Scouts.
I arrive a few minutes after 8 and Mr T and the Karate Kid are waiting on us. Since it is still raining, we jump in the SUV with them to talk about things. In a few minutes a bicycle and a motor cycle with flashing lights comes flying by. We realize we are about to get to watch the cycle part of the Buster Britton Triathlon. Rain hasn't deterred them. So we watch them come by one way and then a little later come back by the other way. Now we have bikes going both ways. In a short while the rain stops and we are the only Boy Scouts there.
So we climbed out of the SUV and get our hiking stuff together. Now the hard part is getting across the road with all the bikes coming both ways. You can see in the first two pictures it was pretty busy. We scooted across though and only had one lady yell at us. Hmmm.
We start up the trail and run into a couple of guys who had been out hiking in the rain. They said it was pretty cool and they did alright. It was kind of humid but we started out straight up the mountain side on the Blue Trail. I quickly realized just how out of shape I was and that I needed to be doing more hiking. We made it to a side trail that I had loaded in my GPS from some Geocaching friends. They had discovered a trail off the left of the Blue Trail that went up on the ridge and provided some excellent views. So we took off up the side of the hill.
The USS PHAH cache was just off to the left of this side trail. So we eased over along the edge of the ridge to the USS. NovaEagle and KarateKid climbed up on the USS and KarateKid found the cache. You will notice in the pictures that they are sitting in the midst of a lot of poison ivy. NovaEagle apparently isn't allergic and escaped any ill side effects. KarateKid wasn't so lucky. He was later known as itchy drawers for a couple of days.
So we signed the cache log and headed on up the mountain to the ridge top. We followed the ridge to the end where we were awarded an excellent view of the Blue Trail and another cache. KarateKid got it for us and we let him sign it as we had already found it. We also found a box turtle and let him go on his way. We then dropped off that ridge onto the next ridge and the next cache. This was supposed to be a multi-cache but the log was in the first spot so I signed it and we moved on.
As we were headed down this ridge to the Blue Trail we saw a trail that led off the side. We followed it to a very large rock formation. We climbed up on top and were awarded another excellent view of OMSP. You can see us on the rock in the pictures above. We then dropped on down the ridge to the Blue Trail in the valley. We followed it up the mountain to the top of the ridge on the backside of OMSP. Instead of following the Blue Trail to the right we hung a left along an unnamed trail and wound up overlooking Hwy 11.
We eased left along this ridge to King's Chair cache. We could see the Wilsonville power plant from here. We could also see Belcher Lake. The boys liked that one. We stopped for a while and snacked so we would have the energy to head on back to the vehicles. So after a bit we made it back to the Blue Trail and instead of going back down the side of the mountain we followed the Blue Trail along the back ridge. We made it to the second Blue to Red Trail connector and quickly dropped down to the Red Trail.
It was a nice leisurely hike down the Red Trail back to the vehicles at the North Trailhead. At one point we heard a lot of buzzing and looked up into a large tree. It was all budded out and the Honey bees were sucking all the nectar out of the buds. It was pretty wild. We also came across two trees that had been blown over by the wind.
We made it back to the vehicles and agreed that it had been a great hike. The temperature was cooler than normal and the humidity wasn't bad at all. Most of the time we had a small breeze keeping us cool and we usually were in the shade of the trees along the trails. Too bad the rest of the boys wimped out on us.
