Splendid Isolation

 

Surprise, no surprise, the weekends' activity list included at least one mountain bike ride into the Out There, though it ended up being not nearly as far as i had hoped it would be. I really wanted to go up canyon, and went so far as to sling the Osprey over my shoulders, something i don't typically do for any ride outside of the mountains. Alas, i only went as far as the yucca seen leaning against my bike in the photo above.  Well, it wasn't so bad really...

I did find that Butterfly Bush, which i shall call Buddleia muirii:


well, alright, perhaps that is a little premature. But who knows, another few generations of reproducing in splendid isolation, it will have evolved into a unique species. Earlier i had come across the remains of someones Holstein calf that must have got loose and apparently disassembled by some hungry coyotes:


Before heading up and over the dam, a circuit of the pits was worked into the plan... Oh, take me home Out There road, to the place i belong...


and while a circuit of the pits may be all about adding a little extra distance to a ride, rather than being anything spectacular, i did disturb a couple young bucks with velvet covered antlers who sprang away at my approach. You can just make out one of the two in the upper left corner of the photo below:


To get over to Old Mountain, you have to get across the basin above the dam, and while it doesn't look like much of an impediment, i was fearful the whole crossing that that stuff growing in there was going to rip my rear derailleur clean off the hanger before i could make it to that trail heading up the embankment on the other side:


Coming back, the sun flowers were pretty, but those fibrous stalks got all wrapped up in my cranks and brought be to a sudden and complete stop:


I noticed that the great Alder experiment may be over, a failure. They look pretty darn dry and brown to me. But then who knows, perhaps they've just gone into a survival mode, a summer hibernation, until the next rainy season arrives:

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