Welp...my friend Karen (KJ) and I had so much fun on our first Apple Ride last October, that we decided to make it an annual event. So KJ made a Facebook event out of it and invited some people to join in. I did not expect many riders to respond, because it is somewhat of a "cross-over" event, meaning that it wasn't a full on trail or DS ride, but rather a DS ride with a trip to an orchard to pick bags of apples stuck in the middle of it. I don't think that that would be appealing to a lot of riders, trying to figure out how to carry a peck of apples out on the trail. And it didn't. But five ladies showed up (well, one of them had a sore shoulder, so she ended up just doing part of the ride), and that was a great sized group for the day. I'm not surprised that there were no guys on the ride...not a "guy" sort of a ride, generally speaking. Too tame, and to apple-ish. None the less, it was a fun day. We all met up at Heart Bar at 9 a.m.....a couple of KTMs, a Honda, a Suzuki and my KTM....I mean Husqvarna, and empty backpacks for our precious cargo we would gather up at Stetson Creek Ranch a bit later. Trail time took us across the side of the mountain to Clark's Grade, where we turned south and headed into Seven Oaks. A brief stop at the little resort there, before heading to our trailhead off of Glass road. The creek crossing on that trail had been washed out since last year, and a bit gnarlier than I remembered, but no problem for any of the group. The forest road was in good shape all the way to the ranch, with spectacular scenery along the way. Patty Messenger was out and about tending to the few customers who braved the forest roads with their vehicles to reach her place, and so it was nice and peaceful with 4 or 5 cars down by the trees. We arrived and bought our bags, gathered up our apple sticks and headed off into the orchard. The rest of the girls went directly to the upper area, which was largely flat, while I sauntered off, solo, and downhill to the lower orchard area which was thick with wild roses which were just bursting with bright red rose hips. I tasted a rose hip. They are sort of sweet and fruity and full of little yucky seeds. My downhill trek paid off, because there were quite a few largely untouched trees down the hill, and I quickly filled my peck bag up with beautiful little blushed apples. The walk back up the hill wasn't so much fun, but the payoff was in the bag, so to speak. I guess most people were not motivated enough to go all the way to the bottom of the orchard to get their apples. We sat under a shady apple tree to rest and eat lunch, before slinging our now apple filled backpacks on and heading up the trail. Hitting highway 38, we made our way to the scenic and winding Jenks Lake road, popping out a bit closer to the staging area on the east side. Up the highway, we went, dropped the apples off at the staging area, then headed out to Coon Cabin for a view of the desert, before heading over the trail that goes from Coon Cabin to Rainbow lane. Highway back to the vehicles, and packed up. By then it was around 4 p.m. We only got about 50 miles total, but the day seemed to fly by....and I got to make a couple of new riding buddies too. I'm sure we will do this ride every October from now on. It is the beginning of a yearly tradition.
Yeah, I should have picked a bunch of those rose hips. Much smaller and lighter, and they were free for the taking. They make great jelly.
