There are miles and miles of logging roads around here and they all go somewhere. I had to ride on the paved road for a bit to get to the unpaved road but the scenery wasn’t too bad.
The paved road turns into gravel road and then to dirt
I am headed east, with Mt. Adams to the left, kind of like the “sun sets in the west” deal for basic navigation
Today I wound up on a trail that is seldom used, aside from local wildlife, that is. I stopped here because I rode up on a bear that was sitting in the middle of the trail. He got up and ran away, but I figured since I was alone in the middle of nowhere, it might be a good time to turn around and head home.
This trail is not maintained, it is mostly a game trail. There were a few large trees across the trail. Nobody is going to clear these blowdowns so the trail now goes around this huge tree.
It was a nice ride home, mostly downhill through pristine forest. There were lots of logs, stumps and rocks under the pine cones and pine straw, so you had to pay attention.
I got back on one of the logging roads when a cougar jumped out of the woods, stopped in the road and looked at me, then took off across the road an into the woods on the other side. It wasn’t a huge cat, maybe forty five pounds, but what are the odds of seeing a bear and a cougar on the same bike ride?