- Joined
- Sep 17, 2013
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I went with the old guys for a mountain bike ride today. Wow can they ride, I can't believe how good these guys are. I just started last summer but I was impressed. They have been Mountain biking for 16 to 18 years and have much better equipment, like carbon fiber bikes with $1200 wheel sets but that won't help me as I don't have the skills to use that. I was following them up Arvo's Hill, which is slippery clay, boulders and washouts. It seems to go up forever. I had my fat bike and they had regular mountain bikes but somehow went through all this while my rear tire just spun in the steep clay holes and I had to keep dismounting. Then they decided to go where there wasn't a trail, up a big knob through the woods. They went around deadfalls and rock outcrops. A few made it without getting off the bike. I couldn't do it, but did about half. Then we found a forest fire and called it in. We got 2 inches of rain yesterday but this time of year there is too many dry leaves and grass for rain to make a difference. Someone had a boondocks party (we found the fire ring) and didn't get the camp fire out. It took 15 minutes of trying to tell 911 where we were. We decided to go down and string ourselves out to lead them to the fire. Two trucks came from the nearest fire department and we lead them on foot through the woods to the fire, which was about 100 yards square. They decided they needed water support and called the DNR. As we left the DNR truck was struggling up. Good luck getting any water back there. Farther down the hill we saw the local TV station vehicle going to cover the fire. Good luck finding it as it was on the back side of the hill. It was good that it was in an area with cell coverage. Also good there was no wind and that we found it before it got big. There were 10 of us and we tried to put it out by tossing burning logs back from the leading edge and stomping out the flames but it was burning under ground. The GPS coordinates were all messed up and said the fire was on Jackson street, not in the middle of nowhere, that is why we guided the firemen to the fire. We only ended out going 6 miles in 2 - 3 hours with all this excitement.
