Plan A was to take a new route over into Bassam Park based on some topo map scouting. I saw a road that appeared to skirt around the east side of Aspen Ridge. I have done that climb to Aspen Ridge from the Salida side enough times, especially this year. It's kind of yucky.
So I was looking forward to having a new way over there, and a nice lollipop loop looked better than an out-and-back to Futurity (where I needed to be to perform my preparation task). I took my right turn following the GPS line I'd loaded. Beautiful road. When I was maybe half a mile in a truck pulling a horse trailer past me, and the folks in that truck gave me the once over. I wondered if I had some body part inadvertently hanging out. They drove on past, but in another mile or so I came to a locked gate with no trespassing signs all over it, and they were parked on the other side of it, presumably waiting to be sure I didn't climb the fence.
Private land. Meh.
I turned around and then climbed over Aspen Ridge. Meh.
In futurity I did a little art and craft project, creating from simple materials some highly collectible tchotchkes which I hid in a place to be revealed to the long course riders. Possessions of one of these little talismans will grant the SBFL bearer a time credit which could change their standings. And they are beatiful, magical little artifacts. The Franklin Mint would love to be hawking these bad boys on the shopping channel.
Futurity is a cool little place. Fun to imagine what kind of tiny community it was back in its mining days.
Saw a bear on my way back. I was doing the slow grinding climb back up to Aspen Ridge. I saw movement to my right, and there was a medium-sized bear ambling up the slope toward the road. We were on intersecting paths. He was less than 50 feet away when I saw him, stopped, and put a foot down. He apparently had not noticed me when I was rolling, but when I stopped he looked up at me, turned on his heel and took off back from where he'd come.
No time to get the camera. Cool to see him, not sure I've ever been that close to one in the wild!
I was pleased that after resting only one day from my 70 mile ride from Salida to BV and back I was able to do another big ride (45 miles and 6,250 ft of climbing) with really a pretty reasonable amount of energy and staying power. Maybe I'll be finishing the SBFL!
2 comments:
Was the road that was gated 185a ? I explored that for the SPDF and was pretty dissapointed when I hit that gate. It looks like they are rather serious about the no trespassing issue up there.
Brian Behn
Yeah it was 185a. I was following the GPX I sent to you that day. It was such a pretty road, I was all smiles thinking I was about to open up a new frontier. From the signs and stuff I saw that they definitely mean business. I'd say it's the south entrance to the Elk Mountain Ranch (http://www.elkmtn.com)
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