Fitch Canyon

Fantastic day! I can't say I can describe today any other way. I went up to the Fitch/ Cottonwood canyon areas to do a little bike riding and follow a road that has been closed for about 18 or 19 years. I had a couple of lightning fires along this road years ago so I was doing my usual trip down memory lane thing. As you can see from the first picture, the road has grown over a bit and had been ripped so it was a little soft for going up hill. I had to walk my bike most of the way up the canyon but it was a nice walk and once I got up on top I tied into the road system that is still open.

The road hasn't been used much and there were no other tracks than mine on it, as you can see from this other picture. I ended up going down past Doyle Reservoir into Fitch Canyon and back down Cottonwood creek where my truck was parked. I got there just as a real active lightning cell passed overhead, it started pouring and some of the lightning was pretty close. This was a very cool part of the day. The storm was a short duration intense thing and I had to move out from under the big trees I was parked under after a lightning bolt hit very close. It's generally a good thing to do to stay away from the biggest trees around in an area when avoiding lightning.

I'll be heading back up in that area tomorrow and I'll be looking for smoke as I ride long. I'd sure hate to see another big fire around here. Anyway, it was a fabulous day.

Snake Tree

Went bike riding today up at Squaw Valley with Chris. We rode almost all the way around Coyote Hills. The hill climbing was minimal and there were lots of almost level road. Well, we were on a road some of the time.

As we came around on our way back to the trucks we went past the Snake Tree. This tree is a very interesting and unique feature in this area. I have been showing it to people and visiting it for 30 years and I was telling Chris, it is virtually unchanged since the first time I saw it, so it's a slow grower. It's not a large tree, or very tall.



The clouds were building so when we got back to the trucks we found a spot where we could watch for lightning and had a couple of beers. Although there was a little thunder, way off in the distance, we didn't see any lightning or get rained on. I went through a few rain showers on the way home but they weren't wide spread. Our ride was only 14 miles but it was all good.