When we finally made the summit of Big Pine Mountain last year, I was disappointed. The top of the mountain kinda rolled off with no clear top. West Big Pine was everything I hoped it would be. The top of the mountain ended in a sheer cliff that dropped several hundred feet. There was no doubt where the top was.
This was our first hiking trip where we combined mountain biking and hiking. We loaded our camping gear on our mountain bikes and used an old forest service road to reach the Alamar camp site, which we used as a base camp. We intended to reach Alamar the first day and Hike from there to the top of West Big Pine the next day. The intent of using the mountain bikes was to allow riding down the mountain on the last day. Down is a somewhat relative term since there is a lot of up and down, but mostly down. The service road was several miles longer than the hiking trail, and the first day was tough, but the last day was definitely much better. It was a good plan, and it would have worked to perfection, except for two fallen trees and a strong gust of wind.
We expected some fallen trees might block the road. I brought along a little saw to address the problem. There were two trees we had to clear our way through. On the second one, I tweaked my back getting my heave bike over a limb. I dropped the bike when I first felt the pain, and I did no serious damage. I could now feel the weakness in my lower back, but no serious damage was done and it did not effect the rest of the day.
The wind gust was different. Just after we left the summit, a strong gust of wind took my $7.95 hiking cap off my head. I finally chased it down, but somewhere in the chase and swiping at the ground to secure the cap; I really aggravated my previous minor back issue. It was no longer minor. If I had it to do over I wudda let the wind have my cap, and a hundred more…..
On the second day the hike to the Summit of West Big Pine went so well that we decided to hurry back to our base camp, pack everything up and get off the mountain before dark. Rain was forecast for the next day, and I was concerned my back would be worse the next day. The ride down the mountain was uneventful except for two hard climbs and the fact that the road was more like a washboard than a road. By the time we got back to the car, I could feel every little bump in the road.
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