This isn't the worst gap on the trail. My bike is too heavy to lift, so it has to ride on the long bridge beam as I somehow find a place for my feet and push the bike across to the next railroad tie. |
The rail road bridge didn't have a deck and walking across those open timbers would have jangled my nerves under normal circumstances. But here I was, wearing hard soled bike shoes with a metal cleat and almost zero traction, holding up a loaded touring bike and trailer, bu-bumpa-bumping along each rail road tie until there was a gap so large that the trailer tire got stuck in it. There was another large gap ahead of me, so if the trailer jerked out and I stumbled forward I would then most assuredly crack my jaw as I fell through the bridge through 20 feet of open air and then land in a foot and a half of stagnant water that reeked of cow shit. It is not my day to die. I heaved on the handlebars and pulled on the seatpost and the rearmost wheel of my rig gradually lifted out and up on to the next timber as I caught the brake and prevented everything from meeting an unsanitary fate. I looked back and realized that the trailer had dragged a decaying loose timber up with it. I had been standing on that timber only a few moments ago. I jiggled the bike back and forth and the timber dropped with a thud. The bike stabilized and thankfully didn't go over the edge, and even more thankfully neither did I. Out of nowhere, the word "butterfly" flitted through my mind. I looked down in to the gully through the gaping maw of the bridge and serenity washed warmly over me. Tell fear to go f--- itself.
You really don't want to fall in that. For many reasons. |
This trail is not for the faint of heart. This trail is not for wussies, sissies, slackers or other non-hackers. There are many obstacles and many opportunities to bail out and go crying home to mama. You have to be committed to pushing through the whole way.