A New Toy for Christmas

Lots of kids get bikes for Christmas. It's almost an American tradition. This year, I gave myself a new bike for Christmas, and it is a blast!


In the previous post, I described how I have become enamored with "fat-bikes", like the Surly Pugsley I spent most of the fall season on. In late October at the Winter Camping Symposium in Sturgeon Lake, MN, I got to ride a Cogburn Outdoors CB4 for more than a cursory demo, and was more than impressed; I was sold. Despite having the same tires and front fork as the Pugsley, the Cogburn is a totally different animal. It's lighter, handles more crisply and is more responsive to the rider. It is actually designed for hunters, and comes in several different patterns of Realtree (tm) camouflage, as well as Forest Green. No, I did not get the green one. Like my Volcanic mountain bike, I went with white, sort of. My color choice was Realtree Snow camo. It is one sharp bike.


Next summer, in addition to a planned missions trip to the Spirit Lake Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, on which I will as on all missions trips ride Discovery, I am planning a trip back east to the western Adirondack Mountains. It was in the Old Forge area at Adirondack Woodcraft Camps in the summers of 1964 and '65, that the seeds were planted that led to my being a park ranger today. It was also the area where, in the early 1980s, I was a New York State licensed backcountry guide.


In August, it will be ten long years since I was home last. Ten years is too long. I am planning to come back to New York, take the Adirondack Scenic Railroad from Thendara to Big Moose, then ride my new Cogburn fat-bike from Big Moose to Stillwater Reservoir, then from Stillwater to Inlet by way of Carter Station and Rondaxe Road, past (and visiting) Adirondack Woodcraft Camps. The second half of the trip will be from Inlet to Indian Lake via the Moose River Plains. I will have to get a non-resident fishing license and catch some trout. (The Moose River is where I learned to fish, 50 years ago.)

I will be traveling with some of my NY SAR and bike patrol friends and maybe my cousin's husband and son. It will be more than an adventure. It will be a Great Exploit!

Proceeding on,
2WX