Mystery Campground (Second Day and Leaving)
I decided to take it easy in the morning and try some more biking in the afternoon if I were to stay. Hiking was out for a while. I read for a couple of hours in the cool shade of the pine trees surrounding my campsite. When the shade dwindled around 11 am I decided to go ahead and pay my $3 to register. I setup my computer on the picninc table at the next campsite over since it had more shade. I began work on my web pages.
Around noon I realized I needed the maps and journal notes from my car. As I walked to my campsite (about 50 feet away) I noticed a man in a green t-shirt and jeans picking weeds around the perimeter of the campground driveway. I got the stuff I needed from the car and tried to make conversation with him on the way back to my computer. Assuming he worked for the forest service, I asked if he was looking for a particular kind of weed (the place was covered with tall grass and flowers that all looked like weeds to me). "Just trying to get rid of these noxious weeds," he replied. I assumed that was a particular kind of weed I was not familirar with but it looked like he was picking dandelions to me. Then I noticed the gun on his belt, the badge on his t-shirt and two gentlemen with pants with Broad Black and White horizontal stripes on their pants coming up the driveway.
"Oh you've got prisoners," I said. He said, "Yeah, we've got to give them something to do." I did not express my analysis from the night before. I explained how I moved into the shade to do some work and he said he did not blame me. As I moved toward my computer we both noticed a deer licking the bottom part of my computer bag which was made of cow hide. It was the same deer that had been hanging around in the morning and early evening. I remarked that someone must have fed it because he sure liked to hang around the campsite.
As I approached the picnic table the deer calmly walked about 10 feet away and turned and stared at me like a dog that did not get its supper. The two prisoners about 100 feet away were fascinated by it. They both were grinning from ear to ear. One of the prisoner's grins was a toothless one. The two looked like the kind of people my prejudiced mind had always imagined populate prisons. The one without any teeth was white and of average build with a weather worn face, and hair that looked like it had been cut by a butcher's knife. The other was of average height, skinny, looked hispanic and had tattoos all over his arms.
The guard and prisoners soon left after the prisoners made a few wisecracks about how the deer liked the guard. Immediately I had ideas for some stories. It was the perfect opportunity for the prisoners to overpower the guard and take my car and computer or, better yet, take me hostage. Or they could use their one daily phone call back at the lockup to call their buddies on the outside to tell them there was a guy camping alone out at the Mystery campground with a computer and a beat up Saturn and Bike that would be easy pickins.
I finished my web page around 2:30 pm and it was getting hot. I decided to try the Twisp River Trail which was supposed to be open to bikes. As I rode out of the campground I found a black sherrif's van in the process of being loaded with prisoners. They passed me before I got too far down the gravel road. Along the way to the trail I saw several bags of Noxious weeds piled up along the side of the road and knew the prisoners had been busy.
To my disappointment on the way to the trailhead my top gear shifter broke and I was left with only the bottom two gears on the front derailer. I found the trailhead and the same people with their camper parked there. After about 50 feet down the trail I came to a creek which I felt was impassable by bike. It was about 5 feet wide, but the middle 3 feet looked to be about 3 feet deep. I threw my bike across the stream with the front wheel landing on the shoreline and the rest in the water. I crossed using a large log conveniently dropped across the stream. It was kind of high and covered with branches, so I felt it was too risky to try to carry my bike across it.
The rest of the one lane 4.5 mile trail was very enjoyable. There were several more small streams to ride through, a lot of pine and fir tree forest and occasional sections of large gravel. I am not sure of the exact definition of the word skree, but I think these sections might qualify. It was large gravel from 6 to 15 inches in diameter in a ravine going up and down the hillside. The trail was built right on the rocks and I felt like I was riding two pogo sticks as I rode over it. The trail was single lane and several times I felt like I was going to be bounced off the trail and down the hill.
I made it back to camp by 5 pm. I put on my trunks and soaked in the icy river for about 15 minutes. I spent about 20 minutes trying to fix my front gear shifter and only managed to fix it to have the upper two gears instead of the lower. It was a very warm day so I moved my chair down to the river bank where it was about 20 degrees cooler. I read for a few hours, did some more web page work and retired to the tent by 9pm. I was pretty much convinced I would not stay another day. I really enjoyed the daytime there and the price, but ironically (or hypocritically) at night I was lonely for the sound of other campers. I planned to try to check out the North Cascades National Park and the northern Washigton coast hoping it would be cooler there.