Rock Grabber, Ground Pounder, and Auto Bike

Ah, yes! Those were the commercial names inscribed on the frames of the three bicycles ridden down the mountain on the The-Last-Great-Bicycle-Ride-to-the-Lake.

But let us digress for a moment before the re-telling of that tale and talk about Leadership! Leadership? Yes, leadership. You know for certain that you possess that elusive quality...in spades!...if you can convince two other highly educated and otherwise rational-thinking women to accompany you on what was to begin as ill-advised, and was to end as ill-fated, bicycle trip down a mountain and down the switchbacks to the lake on a day that the grapevine forecast was for snow at approximately our elevation and there was already rain "spittin' " down as they say out here in the West. (In the South, we say it is "sprinkling"...more genteel, don't you think?) Well, they wavered and they wondered and they questioned and they doubted me... one of them did...I didn't see too much of the other one. She was scurrying about the village filching as many cotton hats and cotton gloves as she could find to use as wrappers for her many cameras that she is never without and would not part with for an ill-advised and soon-to-be ill-fated trip on a bicycle down a mountain in the rain! A cold rain.

There was actually some method to her madness...supposedly, the purpose of the trip, the only purpose of the trip ever stated, was to take pictures of the fall foliage along the road to the lake when said fall foliage reached the zenith of its beauty. In my leadership role, I had been gathering the data, asking guests who arrived, querying mavericks (if you can query a maverick) who go down every day to haul back the luggage and the mail and the food supplies, forever asking bus drivers who kept politely telling me that it was their sworn duty to keep their eyes on the road and that the leaves were of no concern to them whatever their color.

But time was passing and leaves in the village were beginning to fall from their zenith. Afraid we were going to miss the once-a-year opportunity, I exhibited my leadership abilities by pressing into service as a scout Todd Gulliver (husband of Tracy who was at the time thinking of accompanying me down the mountain...and later did). As he left the village on Sunday, Todd was to take an inventory of the fall foliage on his bus trip down and give us the scoop. His succinct e-mail report arrived back on Monday morning: "Go today or go tomorrow." Well, it was already Monday morning and since we are here ostensibly to work (well, I am here to work...they are here to write, so I don't know if that occupation is a subset of the term work or not) we couldn't so easily slide our assignments around and slough off (without the appearance of sloughing off )while the work day was already well underway. In short, we opted to make the trek on the next day...the "tomorrow"...the last day...of Todd's scouting report.

The only problem was that forecast for inclement weather, and I had to spend a considerable portion of my energies in convincing the other two of the fact that this would be our "last chance of the year", our "probably last chance ever" to make this trip. Wavering and waffling, they bought it...went back to their rooms and threw on their cotton clothes, picked up their ponchos and packed their backpacks, which would be to no avail, and pumped the tires which would eventually throw up a stream of water and dirt that would produce a skunk-stripe of cold mud up their backs to approximately an end-point between the shoulder blades.

Sans GoreTex, sans neoprene, sans even plastic bread wrappers we were to hear so much about later from The Experienced Ones, we became prisoners of gravity and we were off! So confident were we that not even an obligatory pre-adventure group photograph was taken...besides, all of Debbie's cameras were swathed in hats and gloves resting inside her backpack for the moment they would be pressed into service to take pictures of the beautiful fall foliage. There is a long tradition at Holden Village of celebrating the ridiculous and the absurd and of honoring the whims and ideas of unusual people, but with hindsight, I now wonder why no one stepped into the path of our trek to inform us that what we were about to do was suicidal!

About a mile or so down the road, we stopped to make some last adjustments to whatever we were wearing that might be loosely referred to as "gear." I took off my water absorbent fleece jacket and put on a thin rain jacket. Debbie did likewise. Tracy pulled a poncho out of her backpack and put it on. We would not stop again...for anything. The "spittin' " increased to a steady, but gentle, rain which in turn increased in volume and intensity to a veritable downpour...at which time we had already passed the Point of No Return! The only option was to continue to head for the lake and hope for the best. We were tending to go faster and faster as the descent toward the lake is steeper (we still had to negotiate the switchbacks) and with all our cotton layers soaking up rain, the weight aboard Rock Grabber and Ground Pounder and Auto Bike was getting heavier and heavier.

And the leaves! What about the leaves? As far as we could tell, there were no leaves. In fact, as far as we could tell, there were no trees! Our focus was solely on the ever-increasing downpour, the roadway immediately in front of the front tire, the cramps in the hands and fingers caused by the constant squeezing of the brakes, and the ice cold rain filling every orifice of our clothing, including our shoes (tennis shoes to be sure!). The hearty laughter and camaraderie subsided into muttered curses and personal prayers.

In sodden disarray, we arrived at the lake. Holden maintains (I use the word loosely) an A-frame there for just such emergency purposes. Overlooking its less appealing attributes, it had what we needed...a Franklin stove, matches, and fire wood, dry fire wood. Her glasses rain-slicked to the point of making her look like Mrs. Magoo, Tracy immediately began striking matches, never mind building a fire, still in her helmet and her poncho, she was just striking matches.

Eventually, we managed to get a nice fire started in the Franklin stove. The sight of the wine bottle stirred our hopes and our interest also, but it was empty.

A most unusual thing happened on the trek down the mountain. Just before descending the switchbacks, Debbie called out, "I'm bubbling!" I maneuvered my bicycle over to see what she meant and to my disbelief saw the front of each of the legs of her jeans covered in soap suds!! Apparently, the previous rinse cycle had not removed all the soap residue, and the copious amounts of water soaking the jeans and the churning of her legs against the material of the jeans had re-activated the remaining soap and turned them into suds.

Debbie removes Tracy's helmet. Underneath that helmet, a soaked cotton hoodie and rain-streaked glasses.


Debbie unpacked one of her cameras and went outside to take a picture of the fall leaves outside the A-frame. Photographing the only fall leaves available was not what she had envisioned, but hey! a yellow leaf is a yellow leaf. The viewer of the photograph need not know its origins.

This variety of tree is called the big maple. A look at the leaves will give a clue as to the origin of the name. The leaves were huge. This would be the only photo of leaves that I would manage to take on this particular day. Ironically, on our way back up the mountain, we were able to authenticate the veracity of Todd's scouting report...the roadsides were a wonderland of fall foliage, a wonderland we were able to view from the inside of the bus!

Meanwhile, back in the village, our steadfast friend, Joan Neslund, must have guessed our difficulties. She retrieved blankets from the laundry to send down on the bus and made a thermos of hot tea to warm us up after the ordeal.


And what lesson did we learn from this experience? It was this: save your plastic bread wrappers. Wear them. Under your hat. Under your gloves. On your feet outside your socks. Invest in Gore Tex. Buy neoprene. Then, stay in your room and practice your knitting!