Wednesday, August 11, 2010 - Great Ride at Tillamook State Forest, Except...

Excellent trails, soft footing, almost no rocks. Beautiful old growth forest, with huge stumps covered with moss. You can practically see the burly lumberjacks in red plaid flannel shirts, hefting long-bladed two-man saws on those giant trees, a mule team hitched to a wagon nearby. Some areas were almost primordial, with moss hanging, lots of moisture, the ground on both sides of the trails completely covered with green ferns and low bushes, at times growing into the trail, which, surprisingly, had only minor and old signs of use. Really a beautiful ride, except... the trails frequently crossed the gravel forest roads, which were constantly in heavy use by these loud, mosquito-like motorbikes. Fortunately, the motorized and non-motorized trails were almost never the same, unfortunately they sometimes paralleled each other, and often crossed each other. This wouldn't be quite so much of a problem if the riders adhered to the 25 mph speed limit, but they rarely did. We were lucky to have only one incident, when Hubby and I had stopped to look at a map kiosk at a trailhead, and he had gotten off his horse for a minute, when suddenly we heard the telltale buzz coming from up the road. Before we even had a chance to react, two cycles buzzed by at top speed, sending his horse toward him, stepping on his foot and knocking him over (which, at least, is better than having her bolt with him on top of her), and my horse snorting in a tizzy for a few seconds but with no place to go. They were gone so fast they didn't know what to do, which I guess is a good thing. It's a dangerous place, and though it's obvious the forest people have tried to reduce conflicts, there is still major room for improvement. I would suggest a Horse Crossing sign and 5 mph limit at every crossing, at least that might minimize the racing that seemed to happen constantly on every straight-away of the road. And this was during the middle of the week, I would hate to see in on the weekends! It's easy to see why the horse camp was empty and pristinely clean of any signs of horses ever being there, though it was a lovely setting. Not many large sites, though, and the one we used (#10) would have been perfect if it hadn't been for the immovable fire grate placed right smack dab in the middle of the best place to park an RV. Oh, well, maybe someday we'll find the perfect horse camp. We'll keep looking! Packed up all the extraneous items in preparation for tomorrow, then relaxed for the evening after our 5-hour ride.