Sometimes, when you head for the great outdoors, nothing goes right. Your body is a bit sluggish, maybe from not enough breakfast or not enough sleep. You never quite warm up. You don’t have the right clothes and you end up always feeling a little chilled around the edges. Your sandwich gets squished at the bottom of your pack and ends up an unattractive mass of food that would be better eaten with a spoon, if you’d remembered to pack one.
You get a flat and you actually have to repair it because you haven’t packed a spare. When you finally get back to the car, you go straight to the nearest coffee stand, where you promptly spill your drink on your shorts. You have forgotten to toss a change of clothes in your car. You go home, take a shower, and climb in to bed thinking, wow, I could have just stayed home.
Yesterday was not that day. Yesterday, my friends and I rode the John Wayne Iron Horse Trail. And it was perfect.
We met at Rattlesnake Lake to park the first car. My pals were just pulling in to the parking lot as I arrived. “Whaddaya say we eat lunch?” they said, so we picnicked on the grass next to the lake. We watched the boats slide across the water while little girls splashed around at the beach. Fueled up for the ride, we tossed my bike and gear in to the pickup and headed up to the Hyak trailhead.
The tunnel, which is one of the big draws for this ride, is just past the Hyak trailhead. We strapped on our lights and plunged into the darkness. Water was falling from the ceiling. There was a pinpoint of light in the far distance, the crunch of gravel under the tires, and a weird echo when I rang my bell. Mike disappeared ahead, but we’d see him every now and then when my light hit something reflective. The lamps picked up wires on the walls and six feet of trail. Beyond that, there was only blackness and the tiny light at the other side of the tunnel.
The tunnel is just over two miles long and it’s cold in there. We rolled out blinking on the other side, instantly re-warmed by the sunshine.
