A strong mountain biker on a casual trail
Jerry and I were mountain biking from the lower parking lot beginning at the 3-Corner Rock Trailhead. He was a virtual pro at mountain biking, and I was a total novice (having only peddled on streets and 1-2 brief minor trails in town). But I was a strong rock climber and an energetic honed mountaineer so I naturally assumed the two activities should help me with the peddling.
In a mere minute or so after departure from the trailhead, he was gone in a fast ZOOM up the trail in a biking dash, but just a few hundred feet up the trail I quickly found myself pushing the bike....a lot more than I had anticipated, for whenever it went up a steep enough grade I burned out of lung capacity, simply because the concept of how to mtn bike-ology was not ingrained into my skill set yet. That skill set takes years of intense practice.
Each time I did catch up to him he was sitting alongside the trail, waiting patiently for me to catch up, while he casually was lounging about smoking and cigarette and smiling at my out-of-shape condition for this sport activity.
We both eventually crossed the foot bridge over the creek and then continued pedaling up the next long zigzag trail grade till we both eventually reached to the USFS gravel road. I quit there at the gravel road and opted to wait, while he dashed off uphill -- him and his speeding mountain bike -- on up the upper portion of the trail en route to the very summit of Three Corner Rock. Yet this year in early June the summit zone of the peak was still covered in random deep snowdrifts.
So, at that gravel USFS road junction where the trail crossed over it....I waited, and waited, and waited...for what must have been several hours. It seemed like forever, but eventually I heard a sound of racket coming from the south (on the gravel road), and from around a bend in the road he came pedaling into view, and finally arrived, stepped off his bike and sat down to smoke a cigarette.
He explained that the upper portion of the peak had so many snow drifts that he resorted to pushing his bike the remainder of the way to the summit. He was not too eager to push his bike back down a considerable portion of the same trail, and he glanced southward and noticed that the main gravel road going southward had minimal snow drifts on it. So he decided to pedal south for several long miles, till he reached the 3-way junction, then cut back NW on the west side USFS gravel road that returned past the location where I sat patiently waiting. Hours went by during this whole process, and he did not escape all the snowdrifts, for apparently there were still notable section in the thick forest -- even on the road -- where he had to resort to pushing his bicycle for long distances. Thus it was HOURS while I patiently waited.
Wow, I thought to myself, he had unlimited physical energy level all committed to the sport of mountain biking....
As a team, we jumped back on our bikes and, from that forest road, we sped off down hill along the Three Corner Rock Trail travelling down to the footbridge, along the lower forested hills trail in fast time on our bikes, racing all the way back to our vehicle parking spot along the Washougal River road.
Jerry pointed out to us that this particular trail (Three Corner Rock Trail) is considered to be an "easy" mountain bike journey for most mountain bikers. I got quite a laugh when I heard that comment....
"Easy for whom?"....
