This Sunday was obviously April Fools. I say obviously because the weather was a joke. You know God, he’s a prankster. How else do you explain the Platypus or Glen Beck?
We awoke to a little sunshine with clouds surrounding us. I dropped Prattipus a line to find out what the plan was for the day. He replied that it was raining at his house and they were kind of waiting to see what the weather did. I continued to get ready. About the time that I was prepared to go, it started to rain. I quickly rushed the bikes back into the shed and closed up the Mooseknuckler-mobile. As I was walking into the house, Pratt called to say it had stopped raining at his house and they were hitting the road with a direction toward the Creek that is Little.
I turned around and dragged the steeds back out of their corral and loaded the kids as it was pouring, spritzing and pouring. At this point the clouds that were threatening to siege Washington had closed in and the party was getting rowdy. We boarded our transport and headed to Adventure’s First Stop to refill with dead dinosaurs.
The rain was off. And then on. And then off. As we rolled past the Apple Valley gas station the sun broke through for a second and things looked good. As soon as we crossed onto the dirt road, the clouds opened up a bit and hail began to fall. Then it began to fall harder. By the time that KB and I had made it to the trailhead it was freezing and it looked like it had snowed. The hailstones were small and it wasn’t coming down as quickly.
We waited about 15 minutes for the rest of the group to show up at which time the sun broke through the clouds and everything dried up. There was a breeze that when it hit you felt like the witch’s nipples people are always talking about but for our pedaling time, the weather was actually pretty damn good.
As can be seen in the above photo. The sky was blue and the clouds were pretty amazing as they swirled around our mesa.
Due to the caustic weather, we chose to ride the inner loops to avoid putting some serious tire tracks on the outer loop’s singletrack. Yea, we roll all ethical and stuff. It was Jamon and Andrew’s first time out so we showed them the rock, a couple of bridges and the waterfall. We didn’t lose anyone and no one died. It was a succesful journey out to the Creek (or crick if you happen to be from around these parts). It was worrisome to be headed to the cursed mesa with a couple of riders who had never been there with the weather being nasty and it being April Fools. Luckily for us, the joke was the weather and not the rock swallowing us whole.
I must admit that I enjoy riding in my usual places with people who haven’t been there yet. It renews a bit of that wonderment that I felt so many years ago when I first started to hit the mesas.
I did notice a few more small signs that have been put up to help people navigate around the mesa. It’s still a shit show for first timers but it does at least point you in the right direction. Which is exemplified well by this map, that happens to not be what we rode on Sunday.
Anywayssss, it was a good time. I hope the weather changes back to nice so we can all go do it again sometime soon.
Yup, it was April Fools and that rock didn’t crumble as we all rode across it. Thank God for the weather.
P. L. and R.