For the first mile or so on the trail to Deer Lake, frequently looking over my shoulder to scenes like the above, I can imagine I'm in the wilderness - barely. However, more and more frequently, I am encountering scenes that tell me I am not. My new name for 39 degrees and 42 minutes is The New Horse Latitude. No dead horses floating on lakes, but still some "leavings" that remind me there are people around here who don't enjoy walking or allowing any trails for walkers alone.
Then, while I am relieved that our dog doesn't decide to roll in this stuff, I encounter a further
disturbance - tire tracks. These back country travelers were not satisfied to take the newly permitted dirt road down to the lake, they had to do some "mudding" as my students over near the coast used to call it.
There's still some great scenery up here in Lakes Basin, but there's more and more that I have to learn to ignore, or perhaps vent about here. Ironically, when I get home and explore the edges of
my driveway, I see that the Oak Treehoppers are still having a wilderness experience. The mom in the above photo has had an encounter with a spider web, but she's still diligently watching over her brood. Her family actually extends for about 6 inches to the right along this limb as shown in some earlier photos in this blog.
The evidence of mudding all over the woods just drives me batty! And then the bellyaching when the Forest Service dares to designate the occasional trail as no motor vehicles... Even our county supervisors were making obnoxious comments about that a few years ago. "Tax payers should get to use public lands however they please" was a Sherry Thrall quote, as I recall. No talk about the tax payers who want their public lands to be undisturbed...
ReplyDeleteHave you seen that restoration area near Snake Lake and Smith Lake, where the Forest Service is (or was--it looked like an old project) working to fix damage from off-road vehicles? Interesting to see the work that has to be put in to fix what some idiot damaged just because they like driving through mud...