Last weekend in July

Saturday, we headed up to the top of Hennessey and this is what we found! A lowboy and a newly graded area along with a new cat trail (dozer trail the ambulance crew corrected me). Because of the Hill Fire across the river and the purported lightning strike on our beloved Hennessey mountain, the crews came over to build some fire breaks and check on things in general. This is now the "new" version of the former jeep trail. The dozer made several passes up to the ridge and around. The rescue crew told us that they would be coming back in to put trees across the dozer the lines so people couldn't use them. We looked at the them askance and basically said that a tree wouldn't stop us from riding on them. They quickly assured us that they meant, "motorized vehicles couldn't use them and thus couldn't tear them up." I had just been thinking our motorcycle friends would be loving the new open trails.  Although we smelled smoke last weekend, we did not see where there might have been a fire. This day, we saw where there was probably a lightning strike. Sure glad they put the time in last year and cleared all the brush and burned it!

We headed back from Gray's Creek area toward where we knew there was a small bit of water for the girls to wash the dust down. As we went along, several fire pickups drove on the road above us. When we reached the top, we could hear another one coming, so we stopped to wait for it. It turned out to be the emergency vehicle from Visalia. That's when they got out and visited with us for a bit. Then we headed down the hill toward the truck.

*Reminder: look before we head up the shortcut trail for the paper nest on the tree (head high!). I didn't see any bees, but. . . .

Sunday we went to the bottom meadow. We rode to the left loop and up the little ridge, but today we veered off and went east for a ways (I always think of it as the skunk trail!). Then back to the meadow. We headed over to the circle around the meadow and come up the west side. As usual, Lynn was hoping to see a bear in the briars. :) Nope. But we did see some big, fat cattle running up the hill in front us. Lynn said she could feel TC's heart pounding. It was a tough day for him. Cows and a boggy, muddy, water crossing.  

The cows had really made it deep mud in front of the actual water. TC did not want anything to do with it. Lynn told him that he had to go first. After much backing up and dancing around without actually touching the mud, Jupes had had enough and basically pushed past him and said, "Let's go! Sheesh!"

Sorry, Lynn. No control. 

I love riding the meadow and coming up the west side. It is so crazy to me how different one mountain can be. It was a beautiful, cool morning and a great way to end July's rides.