the Way of the Turtle

A RIDE IN THE WOODS
10.5 Mile Ride in the Albany Pine Bush
Saturday, December 2, 2006

Well, after several days of incredibly mild weather, winter is once again rearing its head. Chilly weather and WIND were the hallmarks of the day as the cold front that dropped some nasty winter weather in the midwest moves into our area.

Of course, today was my day to go for a bike ride.

Didn't feel like fighting the wind, so I loaded the mountain bike on the car and headed over to the Columbia Circle section of the Albany Pine Bush to do some riding. My plan was to ride the easier trails of that section, then cut over to the water tower trails and maybe check out some of the work being done there in the daylight.

I haven't been riding in the woods since early August, so today was both a treat and hard work. It was great to cruise along the trails again, though some of the hills were a little tougher than I remembered. (OK, maybe it was my legs which were the cause of that!) Passed a group of bow hunters early on - they were very polite, and generally bow hunters don't worry me, since they need a pretty good line of site to get their target. Besides, I had a bright orange vest on over my windbreaker! The sun peeked through the clouds occasionally as I made my way over to 155 and crossed into the other section of the Pine Bush. There I cruised the red trail to the power lines, then headed down yellow to the spot where there were trees blocking the path two weeks ago.

There were still trees in the path, but the clearing crews had extended their work zone far enough into that section that I was able to do a short bushwhack and then pushed the bike through the cleared area. As I've said before, I understand why they're clearing this area... but it still makes me sad to see so many trees downed and such a huge area stripped down to bare sand. The crews have removed most of the downed trees from the area I made my way through two weeks ago - I could have ridden my bike through there had I wanted to. But to be honest, I didn't really feel like riding just then.

Found my way back to the other end of the yellow trail, and got back into riding. Made my way back across 155 and onto the trails. Originally I had planned to just ride the easiest trails back to the car, but I changed my plans twice. The first time was to climb to the top of the largest hill in that section - the sun was low on the horizon but shining through the clouds, and I could see the Helderbergs off in the distance. Very peaceful and beautiful... it's sights like that which make it worth climbing to the top of a big hill! Then a while later, I decided to detour onto one of the uphill trails, so I could come down into the field that was cleared last November and ride the trail that was plowed under in the process. Actually, only part of that trail was affected, and they have put the trail markers back up, so maybe there's hope for the trails that are being demolished this year.

Got back to the car just as the sun was setting... all in all, a good ride - I put in a good deal of time on the trails, and got a better idea of the area that's being "restored" over on the Great Dune. We'll see tomorrow how much juice is left in my legs for my long run...!

JMH