Road Closed

Man... Yesterday and today I went bike riding in places where I had to pass "Road Closed" signs. Yesterday I had to pass 3 of them. Now I am usually a law abiding guy, in fact even now, I am trying to stay out of their closed areas but they have road closed signs up when the actual closed area as defined by the Forest Order posted on the Plumas web page, is miles off. Yesterday I went up Janesville Grade after looking closely at the closure maps. I ran into the first road closed sign at the bottom of the grade. Come on now! The actual closed area is at the top of the grade going back toward the west. The area to the east of the road is not in the closure. So on the way up the grade I pass another closed sign, still about a mile or so below the actual closure. This closed area thing is supposed to be for safety purposes but I have no idea where there are any safety hazards, I didn't see any and I worked in the woods all my adult life. I could just go on ranting about this closure but what good will it do. Instead I will continue to use my National Forest as I see fit and stay away from the fire area.

Now today I went up on Gold Run Road all the way to the top. It was a good hard ride, climbing to the top of that hill, but inquiring minds needed to know what it looked like on the other side and it was worth it. (Only 1 Road Closed sign on the way up here) The picture is looking back toward the area where the fire started and the edge of the fire is quite a way off. It was awfully hazy and you really can't see much but it was gratifying to see so much green forest where I was afraid of seeing devastation. I'll be staying out of that country for a while until they get done working that fire. Oh yeah, Fuck the Road Closed signs!

62,500 Acres

Yep, 62,000 acres. That's a big piece of ground! As you can see from the picture there was a wind shift today. This is the break the firefighters needed to get some line established. The head of the fire yesterday is where that smoke is coming up from, but it's blowing back into the burn so that's a good thing. It's not over yet but this is the big break and if they don't take advantage of it, who knows what will happen. My money is on the fire management team getting control of it now.


On a lighter note, I had a nice bike ride up into the Susanville Ranch Park trail system today. I have taken quite a few pictures of this beaver pond already, but the interesting thing I was thinking of when I took this is that the green cover on the dam is all because the beavers push mud up to cover the sticks and logs they use to form the core of the dam. It's totally artificial but not by human hands. Anyway, some of my mental ramblings when out and about..