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Garberville to Mad River


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After our Lost Coast trip, Liz dropped my bike and I up off highway 101 and I started pedaling again in the afternoon heat. My personal records indicate only this:

21.8 miles
7.3 mph
suck.

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26x28 gearing is just low enough to turn the pedals over doing 3 miles an hour. At one point I stopped and tried to push, scraped my leg on the pedal, nearly dumped the bike, and said fuck this. After that I just stopped to catch my breath intermittently. Some fella on a little honda motorcycle gave me a thumbs up as he cruised down the hill I was climbing - that might have been what pushed me over the top of it. That, and the friendly tailwind I had on my way up. The climb was beautiful, but my oxygen-starved brain could process little of it.

I managed to take a wrong turn and do 7 or 8 miles on a gravel backroad. Finally I descended to Alderpoint, a crappy little town on the Eel river. I had an awful campsite off a side road, and a shit night's sleep. The closest I've come to bear meat.

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The following day I resigned to the reality that each day would begin with 2-3 hours of climing, which would net 6 or 10 miles. I owe my progress up today's climb to John, who invented Ramen and Mashed Potatoes, which I had for my second breakfast, as well as lunch. Carby, salty, and looks like albino worms in white dirt. Yum.

I made my way to Mad River (population 25) and stopped downtown for a hot dog and milkshake (best shake of my life). There was one building, and one trailer (which served hot dogs and milkshakes). At a Forest Service campsite, I decided to try my luck at fishing the Mad River. I found a riffle that looked perfect to my experienced angler's sensibility, and tied on some bugs. After half an hour of fruitless casting, I felt a strange wiggle on my line!

Steve started playing in my head - let it run, Katie! We battled for what seemed like hours, before the fish freed itself, taking my fly with it.

And if you want the true story, I felt a weird wiggle, said to myself, what the hell is that?? And before I could decide what to do about it, it was gone, along with my fly. Either I tie shit knots, or the fish had huge chomper jaws and bit the thing right off. Either way, it was at least proof that fish do exist outside of the supermarket.

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