Sandy Inside and Out

I should have been able to simply stride right up onto the top of the boulder. Instead, my right foot slipped from its hold and I pitched forward into the sandy grit covering, my palm slamming down against the smooth water-washed granite. Normally, no harm done. The thing is, it wasn't my palm that made contact, it was the camera held against that palm. There would be no more photo taking during this ride (fortunately after opening it up back at home and vacuuming out the insides, the camera seems to be working again). It was that kind of a day - unusual, mysterious maybe. Something other than ordinary anyway. 

 While Mt. Baldy up at the head of the canyon was clearly visible, all the other peaks were hidden by low clouds. Funny how that works sometimes. Mysterious. Maybe. I figured it would be a good day to do the full Heights Loop, but then Red Hugh crossed my path up against the dam. You know I know him well enough by now to know that, though he ducks into the brush to "escape," he's still there waiting and watching. Today though, he didn't even try to hide himself, and I didn't even try to get over to where he was; the last time I did that at this spot I picked up all kind of thorns in my round paws. Mysterious how Red doesn't seem to have the same problem. 

Anyway, somewhere around there I lost interest in the loop and, instead, decided to go up and over, and into the basin. Clearly there had been water flowing over there again - very recently - those vernal pools that form among the willows and cottonwoods were full, and I sunk into the mud of one while trying to skirt my way around, heading over to the Buckwheat Trail. And right around there is where I saw the blue jay. Those birds are so common around where humans seem to be, but before today I don't recall seeing one in the Out There. Unusual, maybe mysterious? I rode as far as I could over toward the big boulder wall at the bend in the stream, before things got too rocky and I had to start walking. Uugh? Well, since I was already afoot I figured I might as well lower myself and bike down the boulders to the rocky, sandy and dry stream bed, follow it down through the narrows and climb back up the other side to the West Side Road. I was collecting sand and little rocks in my shoes with every step - if you've ever walked this part of San Antonio Creek, you'll know there is nothing mysterious about that, it simply can not be avoided.

Anyway, hitching the bike up on my shoulders or sometimes using it as a crutch, I finally made it up the bluffs on the west side of the creek bed, pushed through the last bit of brush, that fringe along the West Side Road; funny how I never noticed before (while riding along the road) how thick that growth gets in places. Somewhere along that battle line some branch gouged a furrow in my leg, while a pedal was flung back, taking a chunk of skin from my shin. Man, this is awesome, I didn't say. Although I thought it. Finally, making one last push to gain the road, and breaking through, I had time to notice the crows. This was not your small neighborhood get together, this was a genuine convention. Counting the black specks in one photo (later), and those who were still perched in the trees making those mysterious rolling stone sounds in their throats in addition to the more usual crow chatter, I can estimate that there were a good eighty in view, and who knows how many that I couldn't see. At the time I noticed them, the group was up above the Mt. Baldy Road playing tag, wheeling about, and cackling at whatever mirthful affair caught their attention - at the time that seemed to be a group of Evey Canyon hikers.

Uneventfully, I rode up the West Side, past the power house, to the gate at Shinn and turned around. The crows were still in view, but the big swirling mass of them had flown off down to the dam, attracted by who-knows-what over there. By the time I made it back down to the Eucalyptus grove, they had flown back from the dam and were perched in the dead branches again, where I was able to snap a few photos of them with my phone. If twenty miles was the goal (it was), the wheels came up short, spinning along for eighteen only but, as is often the case with mountain biking, what the ride lacked in miles it made up for in other stuff, the kind of stuff that turns a ride into an adventure.