Month: December 2013
Walking with Trail Bikers
Posted on December 9, 2013 in Encounters Hiking
A red jacket or shirt serves to show them that I am there. My ears stay pricked for their sounds: snatches of rapidly approaching conversation, a circle of clicks from their wheels, and a whine not unlike the wind blowing through electrical lines. I watch out for them and they watch out for me. One hit me a few weeks ago. A shout and the scream of brakes told me that he was coming in an uncontrolled sloping fall down the trail. I stepped up to the raised dirt siding to avoid him. Alas, he had the same idea. His handlebars punched my lower back. He fell sideways. I took two steps forward and bit down so hard that I cracked a temporary crown. There was no animosity between us afterwards. The day was hot and salved my spine. I walked off the pain and the surprise.
Black Beast
Posted on December 9, 2013 in Creatures Hiking
I stopped in the middle of the road to shake my pack off my back and look in it for the red self-charging flashlight so I’d have the torch in hand should night fall before I was off the hill and out of the canyon forest. As I re-shouldered my bag, I looked down the dirt fire road. A small black creature which seemed in my hasty glance to be a dwarfish black bear cub scurried to the right ahead of me and climbed the steep road cut. What was it? I considered many possibilities including a bear cub, a badger, and a tail-less skunk. Then — could it have been a bobcat? I did not know if jet bobcats existed: the size was right if the shape was ambiguous. I cursed my distraction — I had had a camera. The mess that entangled me prevented swift action. The animal had got away and with it the hope of a picture. Several hours later, I checked the facts: black wildcat was a real probability. A photo could have proved the rare sighting and given me a gloat.
Questioning the Whirlwind
Posted on December 1, 2013 in Anxiety Bipolar Disorder Frustration
I constantly question the whirlwind. There must be an answer. And that takes over the mind.
