Out Riding

For the last several days I've been out in the woods riding my bike in places I haven't been to in years. In fact, yesterday I took a road that I've never been up before and the road ended up petering out before it got to the top of ridge. Needless to say it was a case of forging ahead cross country or going back the way I came. It was a grand adventure and since I knew the country so well I knew exactly where I was and came out right where I wanted to. Along the way I came across these two lightning struck trees that were blasted to pieces. It's a good thing this lightning strike didn't start a fire because of the heavy fuels and the remoteness of this spot.


After I got back to my truck I had a beer and while I was drinking it I noticed the aircraft flying overhead. It seemed a little odd to me so I thought there must be something going on. I drove up the road a little way and looked back to see this smoke coming from well inside the Wheeler fire. I've been up on that road and happen to know that there isn't much left up there to burn. In fact the area this smoke is coming from is surrounded by nuked zones.

Today I went out Gold Run and up on Diamond Mountain for one my favorite bike rides. After lunch I was riding along and I noticed a smoke down the valley. This fire looks like it's right along the road that I rode up this morning. It didn't get much bigger, they got on it right away.


Funny thing was that yet another fire started back up behind Gold Run later in the day and I saw it on my way back to Susanville. In fact, at this very minute it's putting up enough smoke so that I can smell it and its filtering out some of the sunlight. This one is well up in the Plumas, let's hope it doesn't get as big as the last fire they had.