A while back, I bought the cheapest Compass that was hanging on the rack at REI. It was this little thing that hung off the strap of my backpack that didn’t have dials or anything. It just gave you a direction. I figured I could at least use it to get myself north, south, east or west. Sounds easy enough! If I keep walking West, I’d eventually hit the Pacific Ocean and then I’d know for SURE where I was. Of course I’d probably die before I got there and never see the Ocean. So I bought a map. A large fold out piece of paper of shades of green and tan with a gazzillion squiggly lines and numbers. I look at the map then at the compass, look at the map, then at the compass. Hmmmmm.. Nothing made sense.
So, I did what every person thirsting for knowledge does… I go to YouTube. It’s there I learn from some fine compass reading YouTubers that I have to account for Declination in order to use the map with the compass. Something about the curvature of the Earth, True North, Magnetic North.. WHAT? THERE ARE TWO NORTHS? What the hell is going on here?
I needed to get to the bottom of this Two Norths thing (sounded hoaxy to me) and signed up for a class from REI.
Now, I can read a Topography map (sort of-need practice) and read my compass and I know the difference between the “Norths.” Oh, and I learned something VERY IMPORTANT. I had to keep “Fred in the Shed.”
In this episode of Twylalword, we go on an 11 mile hike in the beautiful foothills of Northern California near the town of Foresthill. This is a GREAT hike and has very nice ups and downs and is the perfect interval workout. This trail is shared with mountain bikes and horses. Beautiful in the Spring! The trailhead is 3.7 miles from the center of the Foresthill Bridge on the Auburn/Foresthill Road. (Gate 118) You will need to display your state park poppy pass, or pay 10.00 for the day to park.
We come across a weird ode to Sesame Street, a GIANT tire in the middle of the woods, and we get to hear the story about a guy dubbed “sticky pants”!
At 40, I decided I wanted to ride a galloping horse at full speed while hanging by one foot upside down. This is called trick riding!
Mid life crisis? Hells yes! It all started when I saw a photo of a woman riding a galloping horse standing up on top of the saddle! I NEED TO LEARN TO DO THIS. This sport was huge back in the 30s through 60s, with trick riders performing at all of the rodeos. But for some reason, it started to die out and there were only a handful of people doing this sport in the entire US! There was no one to teach me! There were no YouTube videos, no DVDs, nothing in Google that showed me how to trick ride. NOTHING! The only thing that I found was a book called “Trick and Fancy Riding, 140 ways to break your neck” that was written about 50 years ago. In this book were stunts that were done on a galloping horse with little stick figure drawings showing the prospective lunatic how to get in and out of each trick! NUTS!
Then one day, after searching and searching in Google about anything to do with horse stunt riding and finding zilch, I came upon a very crude personal webpage of a man named Rex Rossi about 20 pages deep in the dark reaches of Google. Rex Rossi is in the Stunt Man Hall of Fame. His trick riding saddle is on display in the Gene Autry Museum in LA. He was a national Trick Riding Champion many times over and performed at Madison Square Garden for 19 consecutive years as a trick rider and trick roper. He had been in a zillion movies and had doubled for John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Clint Eastwood and many others. He was also a stunt man on TV shows such as Bonanza. He was legendary. I about fainted when I clicked on his contact page and it said he lived only 45 minutes from my house!
I practically had to audition for the man in order to get lessons from him. Once I proved I was serious, he finally let me bring my horse to his ranch. He was in his 80s at this time and I was lucky to find him when I did. He passed away a couple of years later!
I became a professional trick rider performing at fairs, rodeos and private events throughout the state. I started my own trick riding team called the radical riders. I gave lessons, filmed a trick riding documentary and started the website www.rodeotrickrider.com that had the first forum about the sport before Facebook was around. I have to say that my website brought so many people into this sport and trick riding has made huge comeback. I was also profiled in this fantastic book call Wild Women and Tricky Ladies by Jill Stanford about legendary and present day trick riders!
In 2008, I broke my arm while trick riding at a rodeo and this led to the end of my performing because my doc said I had bone density issues and I didn’t need to be hanging upside down from a horse any longer. However, I still gave lessons at my ranch and traveled to other states to give clinics and private lessons.
Today, my chapter in this wonderful world of trick and fancy riding has come to a complete end as I start another chapter in my life. My horse is old and I quit giving lessons at my ranch. The sand in my arena has washed away from the past two winters, and I’m selling my custom trick riding saddle that I had specially made in 2008. That was a hard decision. But, its just sitting in the barn and I need the funds to buy backpacking gear! My new chapter!
What will I do next? Hike a few hundred miles? We shall call it my golden years crisis!
As a kid, we would travel along I-80 through the Sierra and I was always fascinated by the miles of man-made tunnels that hung on the side of the mountain on the other side of Donner Lake. Back in those days, the tunnels were still being used by trains getting over the Sierra. Today, the tracks have been removed and the trains have been re-routed.
It amazes me how many people never noticed them, even after traversing that stretch of freeway a zillion times! How can you NOT notice these engineering marvels? If you want to know the history of these sheds is fascinating, even if you aren’t a trail buff.
October of last year, we had the opportunity to take a guided tour of the sheds with a knowledgeable train historian. That was very interesting. However, what I DIDN’T expect to see in these tunnels was the unbelievable art! It’s not your run-of-the-mill graffiti art. These are masterpieces in my book! Its dark in these tunnels, so these artists burned up a lot of flashlight battery to get these babies done!
PS, if you are traversing the PCT, you can take a short side tour of the tunnels. It’s right off of the trail. It’s worth it, and very cool temps in the summer months.
I have been a downhill skier for the past 43 years and I thought I’d never give that up! Sadly its become so darned expensive (100+ dollars a day) to get a few runs in. I just don’t want to pay it. Oh sure, I could get a season pass, but then I’d have to ski a boatload of times to make the pass pay for itself. Then, the pressure is ON to get up the hill once or twice a week in the 12 week ski window in Northern California. Then there are the winters where the snow is CRAP and I just paid a boatload of dollars for a worthless season pass.
I have now switched over to snowshoeing and possibly cross country skiing. I never understood the attraction of either until last Friday. For one thing, it’s FREE (other than $5.00 parking) and it’s beautiful. No pressure to get up the hill and use a pass and deal with the crowds, lines and ridiculous price of a lift ticket!!
Take a walk through the winter wonderland of Donner Lake with my hiking buddy John and I. WHO ELSE has been priced out of downhill skiing?
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Two weeks ago, my hiking buddy Jeanne and I traversed the historic Stevens Trail. We encountered a few water crossings, one of which was a kinda scary waterfall. Well, fast forward to this week after some heavy duty storms, the trail was completely different! My camera took a dump on me so I wasn’t able to get all the footage I liked, but I did get some to put together this short clip.
What I didn’t get were the landslides that covered the trail and the downed trees. However, I did get more water crossings and a creek that we just couldn’t get across. Well, I wouldn’t cross. A hearty brave-young hiker might have crossed the raging creek, but if one were to fall, they would be swept down stream just a sort way to the RAGING American River where one would SURELY DIE!
After being in a drought for the past 4 years, California is FINALLY getting a ton of rain and snow! The rivers are flowing…no RAGING! Take a walk with me as I go check out the WATER!
Ok, we aren’t actually ON the John Muir Trail, but my hiking buddy John Denning HAS done all 210 miles of that high Sierra trail and he has quite a story to tell about his 2015 adventure while we hike the Hidden Falls Trail located in the foothills of N. California near Auburn.
After hiking the Steven’s trail the day before, I thought I’d just do an easy 10 miler on the Hidden Falls Trail which is just down the road from my ranch. This is a wonderful trail and has some moderate hills to keep you in shape! Wellll….. my knee was giving me some problems and I didn’t get to do my usual 10 miles and only did 6.5, but, hanging with John and his hiking stories made it all worth it!
Here is just a taste of his 21 day treck with great pics he took! Oh someday, I hope to do just a smidgen of that trail.
The trail is “short”…4.5 miles. The trail goes UP and UP ; the grade takes you from 5300 feet to about 8300 feet. By the time you are within eyesight of the lookout tower, your lungs are screaming…. DONE! Your legs are crying out…. STOP, GO BACK! Your brain is saying.. keep going cuz the view at the top is going to be EPIC! And it WAS! So Epic!
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