The forest I wanted to explore is not small. You could spend a lifetime there. I had a weekend… or perhaps a lifetime’s worth of exploration that has just begun.
I had two goals; I wanted to check out “free dispersed” camping at three locations and I wanted to look for small game hunting spots. This would imply X miles of riding which would take time. I plotted out my course on a map over coffee. How would I reach my goals while sticking to the “prettiest” routes?
Whoa, back up there Curmudgeon! Those aren’t your goals at all. Your single goal is to relax and get right with nature. If you do nothing but sit on a stump until your head’s screwed on straight, that’s just fine! You’re here to let the madness out and some fresh air in. You didn’t want to watch “2021, the Sequel… for when 2020 wasn’t dumb enough and you want to do it all over again” and you need to allocate the time to let the madness of crowds seep out of your bones.
Do what needs doing. Don’t obsess over maps. I’d been getting tense… but then I relaxed.
Meanwhile, it started raining. A light mist. Suddenly, I was in no hurry to go motorcycling and get soaking wet. I threw on a rain jacket and refilled my coffee percolator. I just sat there in the mist… brewing and drinking coffee. It was as good a morning as any. Finally the skies cleared and I’d drank an inhuman amount of coffee. It was time to go.
I rolled out on my Yamaha TW200; which is now lightly modified and loaded for bear. I had a gallon of spare fuel, a gallon of “spare” water, tools, food, survival crap, a SpotX, navigational gadgetry, paper maps, shit tickets… the works. I was ready for (almost) anything. Being a solo geezer in the middle of nowhere it just makes sense to be ready. It’s not like I’m riding in a group. There will be nobody to winch me out of a ditch or set a broken femur should I need it. Take care. The man I’m counting on to get me home is… me.
For the purpose of OPSEC I’m not going to use real place names. Get over it, I’m still more truthful than virtually every press report you’ve heard for years. I rolled out toward “Raspberry Hollow”. That’s the (not) name of a “free” dispersed campsite.
Let me digress. There is dispersed camping everywhere in this forest. Like a man who wants to pee on a tree, the forest is unlimited for my needs. However, some places are better that others. Some spots are swampy and some are dry. Some roads more amenable to my behemoth truck and more likely to have good parking spots than others. Also some spots are informally established; through long use they have evolved fire rings and outhouses. No need to make life any harder than it has to be.
I wanted to see what I’d get at Raspberry Hollow for $0 versus what I’d been experiencing for $20+ a night at Unremarkable State Park.
I set out on the direct route, a dirt road but still the main access. That didn’t last long! Five minutes later I turned, for no reason, onto a logging path. A couple miles later I followed a legal but unlabeled ATV trail into a swamp. Thus, I followed whimsy rather than preconception; which opened my heart to nature.
It looked like a bog so I parked and wandered around looking for pitcher plants. Actually I was looking for generalized “plants that eat bugs”. I don’t know why… just ‘cause. I know they live in bogs where the soil sucks. I was in the right area. But carnivorous plants are pretty rare so you gotta’ look a little. Google says they’re not in this location… but I’ve seen ‘em. Fuck Google. If I can find a pitcher plant I can often find a sundew nearby. I don’t think Venus flytraps occur around here.
I heard something sniffing around in the brush and forgot about plants. Speaking of carnivores… Now I was looking for critters. I stepped in deep mud trying to track it. It, wisely, vamoosed.
I popped out on the trail a quarter mile from my bike. I had one wet foot and a big smile. I’d forgotten all about the world of men and their terrible madness. I’d been looking for plants and critters. I felt better already.
That’s the point.
Back on the trail I made three or six or eleven or twenty more turns based on nothing in particular. I watched, roughly, the compass as guessed by the sun and I meandered somewhat in the direction desired but I didn’t overthink it. I was lost in no time… which also was the point.
Then I broke out of dense forest into a wide open linear meadow just brimming with wildlife. Or, if you want to sound dour, it was the clearing for a high power transmission line. Tear your eyes away from the Sierra Club wallpaper on your Windows laptop and you’ll find that nature isn’t picky. Actual nature, as opposed to the theoretical idealized unreal vision of nature that lives in suburban minds, is perfectly happy frolicking under power transmission lines, above buried pipelines, along irrigation ditches, in old clearcuts, near wheat fields, and so forth. Anywhere else that sports the right soil and vegetation might be a paradise of it’s own. The clearing was a perfect spot for critters.
I traveled along the powerline for some time. “God bless Canadian hydropower!” I shouted. I was pretty close to Canada. I have no idea if it really was Canadian hydropower but that’s a good guess. I imagined, big globs of metric electrons headed south; a lingering vestige of honest trade among capitalists. A flow of power from the good hearted but currently imprisoned people of hockey in exchange for greenbacks which were once holders of true value. This to be misuesed as it charges the Teslas of uptight vegan suburbanite Karens and keeps the lights on at universities that don’t teach. The pylons were huge and arrow straight. The kind of relevant engineering built by men who knew how to build. I stopped and nibbled on some snacks. It was threatening rain but otherwise beautiful.
It was a bit of a lowland so I looked for moose tracks. Didn’t find any. It has been a brutally hot summer. What would normally be a mosquito infested mudbath was a dusty easy ride. Everything is moving differently, adapting to the situation. Moose, who like water and don’t like heat… must be suffering this year? Are moose the North American, ice age remnant, temperate climate version of quasi-aquatic African hippos? I pondered that while I rode further. I took several more turns, left the power line behind, and went from lost to very lost.
I’d doubled down on “exploring” so much that I’d become completely, utterly, lost. I breathed deeply of the air in a place where a man has no idea of his location and doesn’t much care. Yeah… that’s the stuff.