Flipped

It’s been a really interesting week, complete with a near death experience.  Josh is my OHV boss and riding partner.  He is a really cool guy, prior (forest) firefighter and a little bit crazy.   We get along well and have a great time.  Together we patrol the ATV trails and campgrounds.  Most of the time we’re on the ATV’s but one day we patrolled in the Forest Service F350 truck.  I’ll start with that little adventure.  One of the things we are responsible for is making sure the trails are well marked and maintained.  Our mission on this day was to check some signs and to follow up on a report that someone had driven across a meadow. There are hundreds of miles of trails in this forest, but for some reason, the public seems determined to break down gates on closed roads and to ride where they aren’t supposed, like a beautiful meadow.  Sure enough, a week after they had gone through, their tracks were still there, spoiling the natural beauty.  To shrink an all day adventure down to a few lines, we took that truck where no truck should have gone.  We went up and down narrow little trails and gave that suspension and my body quite the work out.  I think some of my teeth were shaken loose and my spine will never be aligned correctly again.  Let’s just say Ford makes one tough truck!!  There were a few times I thought we’d have to abandon the truck and walk out, but Josh got us back in one piece.  I’m not sure how we would have explained to our boss Charlie that we got the truck stuck where even mountain goats had better sense then to travel.  But all in a day’s work for him.  Actually, that’s why the forest service has these trucks, so we can get down roads like that. 

The next day we decided to take  the ATV’s out.  The parking lot where we unloaded was next to a steep slope.  We had to be careful not to allow the quads to roll down the hill when we unloaded. I was a bit nervous, but got it down ok.  Going back up was another story all together, I learned.   The quads are loaded on a flat trailer side by side.  The side rail unfolds to make a ramp.  The trailer is long enough to hold 3 quads side by side.  The width is not much more then the quad itself, so you have to be careful loading it that you don’t crash through the rail on the other side.  You also have to lean your weight far enough forward that as the ATV goes up the ramp , you don’t pull it up and over on top of you.   And that exactly what it did!  When I gunned it to go up the ramp, I fell back on the seat and the ATV went straight up in the air.  It would have come back on top of me, except that the cargo case loaded on the back stopped it. Because I was kneeling on the seat and not sitting on it, I just slid right off.  So there I was, laying on the ground with this giant ATV standing up on its real wheels and me wondering what the heck just happened?!?!  There is definitely a skill to giving it enough gas to get up the ramp but not over the other side, or enough to throw you back and pull the thing over on you.    Not to let a little thing like a near death experience defeat me, I got up, brushed myself off and got it loaded correctly on my next try.  And let me just say, I was leaning so far forward I could hardly reach the throttle! 

We visited  an ancient Juniper tree here in the forest called Old Bennett, thought to be the biggest/oldest in the world.  There was one older, but it got cut down.  Seems a local college forestry class was out doing core samples.  The drilled into the tree and it was so big they got the tool stuck.  The tool costs about $350 and the professor was told to cut the tree down to retrieve the tool.  The core samples showed the tree was about 4000 to 5000 years old.  This tree is also too big to get accurate core samples on.  There is a marmot living in the tree and occasionally it does some housecleaning.  Some of the debris he cleans out has been tested, along with other methods, and its’ estimated to be about 3000 years old.   Here’s an interesting link - http://www.bssf.org/blogs/eric/hiking-nature/the-bennett-juniper/. 

On my day off I took Brutus to the vet to check his thyroid level.  At 16 years old, he does have some heath issues, but he’s doing great.  While we were waiting, a lady came in with a blind 10 year old lab.  Apparently she has some kind of degenerative eye disease.  She had lost the sight in one eye a year ago.  The lady said she noticed the dog’s eye was swollen when she went to work in the morning and by the time she got home, the dog had lost the sight in that eye as well.  It was both heart breaking and heartwarming to watch them together.  The lab was obviously scared to walk around, but the lady  touched her and talked to her the whole time so she could follow her voice.  When she got to the bench and sat down, the dog kept reaching out her paw to touch her owner.  They basically took baby steps with the dog trusting the owner to keep her safe.  Since she’s lived in the same house all her life, the vet thinks she’ll have no trouble adjusting to getting around being blind.  The ironic part of the story is the owner raises guide dogs for the blind.  I heard a story of two dogs who were raised together and one went blind.  The other dog became his guide dog and they were able to run and play together in a huge back yard.  The blind dog ran shoulder to shoulder with the sighted dog, who steered them around various obstacles. 

While I still don’t know what’s wrong with my foot, I decided to give hiking another try.  I went back to Kennedy Meadow, elevation 6327 feet.  I hiked 3 miles in to an elevation of 7700 feet.  Since I had to stop and rest so often, I had plenty of time to play with my new phone app, GPS essentials.  It give elevation gains among other things.  Holy cow, the entire trail was straight up!!!  Not only that, but in places where the C’s had created steps, some were almost knee high.  It was pretty rough terrain, but spectacular views since I was up near the pass.  On the way up my lungs were in fire and I has to stop and catch my breath every few minutes.  On the way down, it was my knees screaming.   Anyone with arthritis will tell you, going down stairs or a hill is much harder on your knees then going up.  Add the high rocks and steps I had to get down on knees that don’t bend so well and it was a difficult trip, but well worth the effort.  I don’t know if my knees drowned out the screams from my foot, but I hardly noticed any pain.  Maybe it’s getting better whatever it is. 

 No pictures this week…