|   Had an...interesting...ride today | mudferret
Aug 8, 2002 2:16 PM | | Today I decided to stay away from any technical trails or any trails with lung or leg busting elements. I remember checking out an abandoned early 20th century gold mine with some friends a few years back, so this is where I decided to head. It wasn't a bike ride so much as an exploration mission. It involved about a 30 km drive to the end of a lake just outside of the city limits, mostly on well maintained dirt roads. After intitially making a couple of wrong turns I managed to find the trail that splits off the road. Park the truck, get duded up and head on down a short downhill. The trail would best be described as double or triple track, with a peppering of cobble sized rocks strewn about, all in all pretty mellow. I followed the dirt for about 20-30 minutes when all of a sudden the trail crossed an ephemeral stream at a very shallow angle, it created the illusion that the trail merged with the stream so I started hike a biking up the stream bed. Turns out the trail paralleled the stream about 5 metres to the left!! I found this out on the way back of course.
The stream was pretty steep in parts with large boulders and cobbles making it unridable (in the upstream direction at least) for the most part. Amongst the rocks was a very, very fine mixture of sand and silt, completely out of place in a steep, rocky stream bed. I snapped a quick photo and continued on. the stream led to a large clearing, roughly the size of a small lake, which was completely dry and also filled with the same silty-clay mixture. 'Oh, that's right I said to myself, this was the tailings pond!!' Having studied geology between my two visits to the site I now knew that the old pond and stream must be loaded with arsenic, a component of gold refining.
*mental note* hose bike off when I get home.
It's a strange feeling riding accross the pond, feels like both tires are flat, and you keep on thinking of quick sand. Luckily there were human and animal foot prints pointing the way to the other side. Immediately on the other side of the tailings pond you start to see remnamts of the old mining infrastructure, concrete footings and foundations along the old 'shore' of the pond. A little ways up the trail a beaver had decided to build a dam right accross the trail, '...bloody trail misappropriating rodent' I thought to myself. Just as I was thinking this, the old beav decided to slap the water with his tail as a warning to me, I flipped him the bird and made my way around the dam. A little bit further on were some more remnants of the structures that once stood. Some foundations and a massive concrete 'oven', my guess is it was used to smelt the ore as it came out of the open pit. A flagstone at the top indicated it was built in 1911. I'd heard that the mine was only open for 5-10 years.
~Two hundred metres further up the trail was what I came for, the open pit. It's hard to tell how deep it is because it's flooded up to about 20 metres below the lip. Very steep sided, and roughly 100 metres in diameter. A friend had told me that there was a shaft that enters the pit from somewhere (he had cave-dived it before) but I couldn't find any tunnel entrance nearby. I found piles of drill core laying around, I considered taking some, but hell, it's only granite, it would pale in comparison beside the kimberlite core I have at home. After some quick exploring and some photos I decided to head back.
On my way back I got to thinking that although I was 10's of kilometres into the woods that I was relatively free from danger, the trail posed no hazards and I had plenty of water. I realized that the only real danger would be the black bears, it was blueberry country after all. And for some reason I have a bad knack for surprising bears at close range. No sooner had I thought this that I round a corner after a brief downhill and see an imposing figure about 50 metres ahead of me on the trail. SLAM on the brakes, we both eye each other, then he SLOWLY walks into the dense brush at the side of the trail. 'Great', I thought, 'the bastard's too young or stupid to be scared of me.' He looked to be about 2 years old, maybe 180-200 pounds, not the biggest bear, but the young ones are the ones to be most afraid of. They still haven't figured out that we taste like sh!t. On a side note, grizzlies are more likely to aggressively attack and kill humans, but they don't eat us, black bears do.
I waited about 2-3 minutes, then started making my way down the trail, walking my bike and having a conversation with the bear, they like it when you talk to them. I was closing in on the spot where he wandered into the thick underbrush, only a couple of more steps to go, *Crash*, *Bang*, *Thump, Thump* the bloody thing was still only about 5 metres off the trail to my right. Luckily he decided to put some distance between us. Surprisingly, my heart didn't even skip a beat, I rather enjoyed the slight scare.
Now that I thought we both were happy to go our separate ways I remounted my bike and started riding back to the trailhead. No sooner had I gotten back to my truck, when I spy my little furry friend slowly making his way up the trail behind me. I wrenched open the door and layed on the horn and he bolted. Black bears are known to stalk and hunt humans, on VERRRRRRRRY rare occasions. I'd like to think that I was being stalked today, it's a bit of a rush (in hind sight of course). Although the chances of actually being attacked let alone eaten by a black bear are very small, it still gets the heart going. I have a wilderness survival course, with an alarmist instructor, I was forced to take for work to thank for that.
Bring it on you smelly beast!!
rdm |
| "Alaska Bear Tales" | BadHabit
Aug 8, 2002 2:50 PM | | Cool ride, Muddy, educational and scary. That book, "Alaska Bear Tales," with a slavering, wild-eyed, charging sow grizzly on the cover, deserves an introduction by Roy Scheider. You should read it. |
| Thanks, I'll check it out...NM | mudferret
Aug 8, 2002 3:03 PM | | . |
| Mark of the Grizzly by Scott McMillion is a slightly more | AK Ken
Aug 8, 2002 3:22 PM | | refined publication on bear encounters than Alska Bear Tales. Less of the "Sheeyooooot!! Ya shudda seen the FANGS on thathere critter!!" and more of an in depth look at what really happened as written by victims and rescuers.
Ken |
| And I thought rattlesnakes were scary | Bonee
Aug 8, 2002 3:10 PM | | Every couple of rides I seem to hav close encounters with very think and long rattlesnakes that, as far as I'm concerned, do own the trails.
I think I'd take the snakes over the bear. My biggest fear is crashing on a rocky section of a trail and landing in a spot where a rattler is sunning itself. That would be quite pleasurable I'm sure. |
| Obviously I'm not riding enough... | Timmy
Aug 8, 2002 3:58 PM | | I've yet to run into a single rattle snake here (alive anyway).
Coyotes, deer, hawks and owls on a daily basis, but yet to see a rattle snake. Did see a funky black guy with horizontal yellow stripes, but no rattle snakes.
Not that I mind...
Only happened upon a bear once back home on the ICT while moving tools back the night before a trail day. Slept under the stars with my eyes wide open that night. |
| Obviously I'm not riding enough... | Bonee
Aug 9, 2002 8:33 AM | | You ride Penesquito's a lot, right? On the main trail thru the canyon I've never seen a rattler, but if you head north at the midway point and go up the powerlines, there is a lot of singltrack up there. Thats where you usually see them. |
| That would explain it... | Timmy
Aug 9, 2002 9:12 AM | | I use Penesquistos entirely for commuting. Consquently, I rarely venture off the fire road. I'm generally in too much of a hurry to get to work or too tired afterwards. I also commute on my cross bike which has a 38x25 low. Not the greatest gears for climbing up the north side of the canyon. No fun! When I ride for fun I will usually go else where since I spend so much time there, but even then no snakes.
Probably because I'm an early morning person. I try to be on the trail between 6:30 and 7:00 regardless. Snakes are probably still curled up trying to keep warm. Not a bad thing.
TCN (hates snakes) |
| Pretty much the only thing that make penesquito's worthwhile... | Bonee
Aug 9, 2002 12:23 PM | | is going up the powerlines and into the singletrack (or commuting in your case - I know a few that use it for that too). I'm from CT and the singletrack up there reminds me of it. Nothing to steep going up or down, just a lot of quick, tight turns, lots of quick rollers, and some roots and rocks that have the potential to give you a quick unexpected toss.
In a pinch for a good 2 hour 18-20 mile loop afterwork, its actually a pretty fun ride. My only advice would to NOT go there alone unless you have a lot of daylight left. I learned about the singletrack thru the old Sorrento Valley Bikes USA group rides (now Performance). But 95% of the riders were racers and pretty quick. The first time I went out there solo, there were a few times I had to stop and figure out where I was and how to get back.
The obvious answer would be to head south on any trail, but some of those drops back into the canyon are only ridden by madmen, if any still exist. |
| And my biggest worry is...... | Dragonfly
Aug 8, 2002 3:58 PM | | HUGEASS spiders. The place I ride close to home doesn't get much traffic in the morning when I do go, and I'm always riding into spider webs strung across the trail. YUK! Sometimes they are so big I feel like I've been cocooned after riding through them! It's really gross. I keep seeing a big hairy spider pissed off at me for wrecking his hard work and crawling up my back to get even and bite me.
Bears, snakes, lions... I guess spiders aren't so bad after all.
Once, while riding in SoCal, I had the feeling of being stalked by a lion. It's a really creepy feeling. It was really freaky. All of the sudden it was like the birds stopped singing and it even seemed like the wind stopped blowing. Total...dead...silence. Very strange.
I made a lot of noise, tried to look big, and called to the riders ahead to WAIT UP! I think I actually climbed a rutted climb fairly quickly that, to this day, I don't think I could ride. lol
Scared the bageebers out of me.
I've never seen a rattler. |
| A question....... | Dragonfly
Aug 8, 2002 3:46 PM | | Why would you walk past that part of the trail where the bear went in to the brush? Wouldn't it have been better to quote "ride like he//" ON your bike through there? Just curious.
I know that the object (at least with mountain lions) is to look LARGE, and I know I look larger ON my bike than off if being stalked.
Since it was a juvenile bear, I'd take a guess and say he was just curious about you, not necessarily hungry. What do you think?
I guess curiosity with a bear could involve wanting to toss you around a bit at the very least...lol. Maybe he just wanted to get close enough to get a good whiff.
;) |
| Some answers... | mudferret
Aug 8, 2002 5:04 PM | | Ultimately the best thing to do with bears is to BACK away slowly. Unfortunately I couldn't back away since I had to go that way. I didn't want the bear to mistake my riding by quickly for running, sometimes bears interpret running as meaning that you're a prey item. Also, once a bear is up to speed they can out run and catch up to a lot of things, they're actually quite fast.
I'd tend to agree with your statement about the bear just being curious, although it's much more fun to think that he had dinner plans;-)
peace,
rdm |
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