ROCKY (and MUDDY) and BULLWINKLE, or Mollifying a Moose

Algonquin Fauna
They were between me and the route back to my campsite. Moose are very big animals. They gaze impassively. I was wearing my Spam Stops Here jersey, which is kind of brownish orange. And I had my white Specialized helmet on. I looked down at my jersey and touched my helmet. Maybe to her I was a deer with my butt in the air. Maybe the bike looked like an interesting arrangement of stag horns. That impassive look of hers was going on a long time. The calf half turned on the trail and took a couple of steps as if to say, "c'mon mom, let's get away from this stranger. That butt in the air thing has me worried."

But mom just kept staring. I didn't know if it would be worse to be perceived as a threat to her or to be courted as a possible mate. Maybe dad was off on some tryst with another cute cow. Maybe I was just the guy she was looking for to fill the void. "Sure," I heard her thinking, "I'll take a scrawny stag in a pinch." I felt a chill flutter through my skin. I slowly turned my bike around and eased back on down the trail in the direction I'd come. I listened for hoof steps, but none followed. Fifty more feet down the trail along a wooded turn I waited.

The Lie
These were my first hours in Algonquin Provincial Park. Connie and I had set up camp and I wanted to get out immediately on the only marked mountain bike trail in the whole 4578 square mile park. (To get a sense of the scale of this place, Rhode Island is 2000 square miles.) Mountain bikers get a 16 mile loop. It's quite a big section of trail, considering that there are numerous hiking trails all along Highway 60 and few go this far and deep into the park. The way to get to know the heart of darkness that is Algonquin is by canoe or kayak. There are nearly endless lakes and portages. You come across the portages as you trek around the trails. But kayaking didn't happen for us this trip. Connie and I hiked and I slipped in a bit of biking each day, because I'm a pedal addict.

Minnesing Mountain Bike Trail is "rated at a moderate level of technical difficulty." That's what it says in the official Algonquin trail map. Whoever wrote that is a twisted human being. I'd consider myself a reasonably advanced mountain biker and Connie is an advanced beginner. For as little mountain biking as she does, she's really pretty darned good and can fly through sand and other obstacles that I've seen some very advanced riders struggle through. So, we thought that a "moderately difficult" trail would be within her skill level and still give me enough of a challenge to keep me interested.

Before we started I wanted to reassure her that falling is part of mountain biking. At least it often is for me and for the people I ride with. She didn't believe me. She thought I was just trying to make her feel good. I was. But I fall a lot. That was the truth. Little falls, big falls. They just happen. So I was able to give her a demonstration of my art of the fall when I came upon a wooden bridge over a large ditch.

It was really beautiful out. The rains had created a vernal wonderland of bright green grasses and heavy lidded foliage. The sun dappled through all those leaves and made treacherous little obstacles look like cute postcard shots of happiness and playful joy. This bridge was cute. It was nestled in the grasses at the bottom of a slope and it had a lip on it that you had to hop your front wheel up on. It would have been easy at speed. I was poking along, really enjoying our ride together as we chatted and pedaled up and down these lush slopes of fantasy land. I approached the bridge, popped the front wheel to clear the wood lip and looked down to see a mean spirited little ditch running parallel to and a couple of feet in front of that lip. The front wheel was up as the rear wheel hit the ditch, immediately driving the front wheel back down and into that lip before it could quite clear it. It was a nice, slow motion roll over the handlebars and somersault onto that sweet little bridge, where I continued on over to a sitting position as if it were a planned acrobatic move into a moment of rest and reflection. After Connie's eyes receded back into position, she asked if I was all right, thinking that our ride was probably over. It was my demonstration of Reassurance 101. Proof that falling is an uninhibited craft I've mastered

The Slippery Slopes
There has been a considerable amount of rain in Ontario this year. I think they've broken all kinds of records for wet. But, even in the best of conditions, this trail is definitely a tad above the "moderate" level, particularly the eastern side. It's narrow, twisting, and full of spiky leg ripping hills that are not necessarily short. Most of all there are rocks and mud. Just mud would be one thing. There are many sections that are just mud. These are the deep, long patches of glocky mud that make your heart patter as you approach. But after a half an hour or so I was able to rip through these like they were just spongy hardpack. Even the deepest mud was ridable.

Except when the mud was part of some major ditch mixed with roots that you had to pitch down into and climb out of, usually rutted with other bikers' attempts to do the same. I'm sure there are those who specialize in this kind of thing. Every time I tried, my bike was pitched all over the place until I was dabbing, then giving up in exasperation, my shoes schlupping up the slippery slope.

Mix in the rocks and the game changes completely. These were rocks anywhere in size from baseballs to soccer balls. And almost nowhere on the east side trail were there just rocks. They were almost always mixed in with the mud. I'd head into the fray with a strong resolve, but soon my front wheel was kicked north and my back wheel was slamming south as it combined with a slippery spin in the adjoining mud. Then the front wheel would ram into a soccer ball and the whole thing came to a sudden halt.

Now, like those helpful music lesson cd's that start with the drums, then add the bass, then add rhythm guitar, then the freewheeling saxophone, think of all this--mud, rocks, occasional flowing water--on a 14% slope. That's the true heart of Minnesing. That's what takes this to a technical level that blows "moderate" right off the rim. And this type of condition wasn't the exception, it was the rule, over and over and over.

It was finally Connie's undoing. I felt horrible, because we'd planned a week of this kind of thing and it was painfully obvious that the level of difficulty on this trail was far beyond even the hopes and aspirations of an intermediate rider. There was just too much grunting and grinding up and down these treacherous rock strewn slippery slopes to make it much fun unless you live to prepare yourself for trips to the emergency room. It was definitely challenging me to the limit of my abilities, much less to someone who occasionally gets out on a mountain bike. We realized that unless she was in the mood to walk 16 or so miles of this trail pushing her bike, we needed to find the first turn-off and head back.

We did. It was a half-mile non-stop uphill climb through a rutted wash that was all the things I'd previously mentioned. It was the drums, bass, guitar, and saxophone with a touch of Dizzy Gillespie's twisted trumpet wailing and squealing its tortuous highlights. We walked much of it, in other words. I was able to clip in and scramble up a few sections, but often I'd end up with a tire's width of trail dropping into a rock strewn central ditch glazed with mud and water. As soon as the tire dropped into the ditch there was the choice of trying to ride up through the slick rocks, not really an option, or crank up the opposite mud caked embankment and see if I could ride the tire's width of trail on that side. It seldom happened. There was just too much slipping, bouncing and up. Always up.

And the mosquitoes and deer flies had their way in the midst of all this. I'd slathered myself with deet all over my exposed face, head, neck, and hands, but nowhere else and they soon discovered the joys of gossamer lycra and they zapped away at will, particularly the deer flies. I'd grind uphill in some precarious position with my butt sticking out and wiggling away and sure enough that's where the little pecker jammed its spike. I'd suffer through it and keep pedaling, both hands clamped hard to the handlebar.

Once over the hill it was a short glide down to the west side trail, which was wider and less muddy, but often strewn with rocks and boulders and with long sweeping uphills and downhills. There were parts of this where the downhills went for a long ways and they were peppered everywhere with all sizes of rocks, but it was dry for the most part, and it was a dream if you like to just skip and dance down long spines of two track at speeds over 30mph.

A short while later, we got Connie back to reasonable lengths of trail and then the connection to our campground at Canisbay Lake where she could hang out while I did the next loop in the system. I headed back out and popped easily over the endo bridge with my new awareness of its sly little ditch. I opened the throttle up where I could and found a lot of the obstacles and particularly the mud much more ridable than the first time through. I was hoping that the trail would open up a bit after the spot we'd turned off. It was not so. The constant change of grade, more rocks, more mud, and the new inclusion of streams in the low areas made the going even tougher.

Nearly everything was ridable except for the rock/mud/hill climbs. I really wanted to watch someone do this. I was hoping through the week to find others along the trail who could give me pointers. But to my surprise there was only one pair of riders in the parking lot on the Sunday we arrived and from then on no one. It was my trail for a week. There were plenty of muddy tracks on the trail, but the riders were nowhere to be seen.

It was like trying to find moose or bear. They appeared when you didn't have the camera or when you felt most vulnerable, but try to find them when you were fully prepared and it was like they'd left the forest for a bar in Madawaska to sip Moosehead Ale and snicker away. I know that if I'd done something really stupid on the trail, like go over an embankment into a lake, I would have had an audience of fifty bikers on a group tour, but otherwise they didn't exist. Not that I was really that shocked. After a week on this trail I realized that it would take an intrepid soul to want to venture in. On my last day I did the complete loop and it was exhausting with one mud/rock climb after another. I spent about a third of the time off the bike and pushing.

I never learned about the dynamics of the terrain, but it was hard to figure out how hills can be seeping water all the way up and down, but at the bottom be completely dry. This phenomenon happened a few times and opposed all rules of logic to me. But, more often, the bottom would be many degrees rockier and muddier, often with a stream to ford.

But there was one time as I'd rounded Linda Lake at the far north end and was arcing back southward in the direction of camp that I crossed a sweet little bridge with panoramic views of the lake only to confront a steady uphill climb on the other side. It was ok, though. It was dry. It wasn't even rocky. But it was a long, long uphill. At least it was dry. I could stay on my bike for a change. Nice. From here on, I thought, it will be a smooth steady rhythm back to camp. Then, when I thought the hill couldn't go much higher, it did. And it got wet. And muddy. And rutted and muddy. With muddy washouts and muddy ditches. I slipped and slopped away. I made every attempt to keep pedaling, sometimes with one tire tread between me and dense shrubbery on one side and a muddy ditch on the other. Until the shrubbery reached out into the ditch and I had nowhere else to go. Then it was slip, drop, hit a muddy ledge, and spin to a complete halt. There was no way to hop up and ride from then on. It was off the bike and push. "Moderately technical."

Talk to the Animals
We did more than bike that week. We hiked every hike we could and saw more moose and a bear. And the hikes were varied and gorgeous, sometimes with climbs to the top of large escarpments that revealed views out beyond anywhere you could bike or hike. Out where only the kayakers and canoeists ventured. But Minnesing trail still haunts me. It was green, lush, overgrown and rife with slippery challenges. I wanted to learn to ride it with only an occasional dab of the foot, but I certainly wasn't in that league yet, if I could ever be. But even in its treachery it was alluring.

I did finally get around that Moose cow and her calf by the way. It was either confront them or ride back through the hell from which I'd emerged and that wasn't going to happen if I could help it. It was my first day and I cursed two things: one, that the camera was back in camp with Connie, and two, the fact that I hadn't read any of the park literature yet about how to deal with big wild animals. But at this point my stomach was beginning to rule and it said I wanted to get back to camp on the easiest, quickest trail and that meant passing mom and shorty.

I rode back up the trail toward camp hoping they'd moved on, but of course they stood just as they had before. I stopped and we did the stare thing for a while. Then I did what anyone who's watched Rocky and Bullwinkle from a formative age would do. I talked to them. "You can go now," I said to the mom, like she'd grown up with good English grammer classes and understood my clear enunciation. "I'm coming through," I said in the most mellifluous voice I could muster. (Let's be happy together. Aren't we happy?) I even waved my hand forward, like I was shooing a bad performer off stage. Then I did something really stupid. I pushed my bike ahead of me, thinking I could put it between me and a two thousand pound charging moose and it would protect me like the steely shield of a Spartan warrior. I even puffed my chest up. You can find a picture of me somewhere in my blog. My chest is fearsome, puff or no puff. You'll see.

And with a big gulp I awaited my fate. But either her amorous feelings had subsided, or, more likely, I was an annoyance, but she slowly turned and stepped--in her own version of slo-mo--off the trail. ("Ok, if the jerk wants by I'll move, but I'm not rushing it so he can get back to camp and make up some lame story about how tough he is facing up to a big bad moose.")

I was free. I slipped past them and I was the scirocco along the dry two-track back to camp. It was my first day and I'd seen two moose up close. I was exhilarated.

Yeah... and...they were both big moose. Big...ummm...bull moose...Not bull-winkles, but real mighty, mean bulls. Yeah, that was it...with massive racks. And they were ornery SOBs. When they charged I knew that running was not an option. I stood my ground and tossed my bike to the side so it wouldn't hinder my ability in hand to hoof combat. I looked at each bull, deciding I'd take the big one down first, leaving the smaller four thousand pound bull intimidated. I did all this in the time it would take to clip into a pair of titanium Eggbeaters. When the largest bull came within a few feet he lowered his head, preparing to ram me full on. I dug my right leg into the soft earth behind and leaned forward on the left, lowering my shoulders and helmet donned head, ready to take the full brunt of the blow. As the feet drew to inches, I smelled the moose's roaring breath and heady musk laden hide. I thought, as everything went into slow motion, this guy could use a Chlorets and a dab of Old Spice...