July 15th (Afternoon)

Day #2 for exploration was another success. I took the same way down into Peterson’s Creek as yesterday, and rode through the creek today. I remembered what the problem was yesterday, and why I didn’t ride through it. It was both getting down into the creek and climbing up out of it that are pretty tough. If I ever make the entire way (down, cross and up) I’m sure it will be a great day! Anyways, I made it across, but had to hike-a-bike up out of the other side. I then tried the trail that I saw Phil climbing up yesterday (rather than that long, steep trail) and it was OK, with just one little non-rideable section that I had to hike-a-bike again. After that, however, the ride went pretty good. I got a couple more pictures, though.

Well, I was hoping I would be able to capture this on my phone camera, but it didn’t turn out so well. Anyways, on the left of the trail is a nasty 50 foot drop pretty much straight down. After I took the picture, I looked down and was suddenly VERY nervous about dropping my phone! The climb down and up was extreme enough that I even wondered if I would bother going down to get it if I did drop it…

 

Here’s that little “rock wall” I have to climb. Now that I see the picture, I realize that putting my bike there effectively blocked the part of the trail I was trying to capture… Oops… Anyways, for sure a doable little section with some practice!

 

Here’s kind of a neat shot of the Peterson’s creek canyon from the east side, the top of my climb back up out of it. Down on the left just past the evergreen trees is a rock cliff similar to the one you can see. If I were ever to fall here, though, I highly doubt I’d be going fast enough to slide that far… Right? Oh, and that’s downtown, Bachelor and Westsyde that you can see in the distance.

 

I met up with the upper road on Frolek’s land again like I did yesterday, but this time I figured that I would continue on that road rather than following the trail network that Phil showed me yesterday. It was, for the most part, a decent trail to take. A bit boring in places (come on, it’s wide and flat!), and in some others rather annoying with all the sticks, rocks and dug up and dried mud from the logging they did a few months ago. Anyways, I came down at the end by Rose Hill, following a trail that dropped me right at the top of the last hill on the pipeline section at Rose Hill, meaning I skipped across Rose Hill road and headed into Juniper. All in all a good ride, but I’m not sure about taking the entire upper road again. It was a bit longer (distance and time), and not as fun. I did meet another commuter, though, who works in Valleyview and lives in Sahali. I didn’t get his name, but man there are a lot of crazies in this town!