This was the view from the White Trail on the way down to the creek. It’s a little tough to shoot pictures while zipping around out there. However, this view was a high spot above the initial open field near the trail head and parking lot. The other side of the White loop is out there near the trees. Because it’s rather close to a flood plain for Crutcho Creek, the trail is mostly built up a few inches above the surrounding elevation, plus a few drain pipes covered with dirt to facilitate run-off. Trust me; this place is pretty muddy after just a little bit of rain. Now if only we could get just a little bit of rain, I’d gladly find some other form of exercise.
I apologize for the glare, but this is the best shot of the official map that I could get. Today I decided to see the Black Trail. This branches off the Blue Trail, and both are marked one-way. That means I got to repeat part of the Blue Trail because the Black runs back down toward the creek bed. It offers much deeper gullies and the man-made obstacles are mostly squared-off dirt humps that you can by-pass if you want. The idea is to pretty much force you to have one or more wheels leave the ground if you take the harder track. Still, I found it easy enough to make it a regular feature of future rides.
On my way back, I was held up by a train. Not just a passing train, but one that went back and forth several times because they were pushing parts of the train off on multiple siding tracks at the automotive depot a couple of miles down the track. That place is packed; the plants are still pumping out the new autos but no one is buying. All the dealers are making outrageous offers with credit terms that guarantee they’ll have to repossess most of them. Speaking of that: The repo wreckers have been cruising our area pretty regularly. You can always spot them easily — single color paint job, shorter than usual frame, a quick-pick lift on the rear and usually nothing but “Not for hire” on the side next to the state wrecker operator’s license number.
At any rate, I found a shady spot alongside the tracks where I could wait the quarter-hour or so that it took for this train to finish and clear the tracks. The only problem was keeping the aggressive giant red ants from climbing on my shoes.
