Samaniego on fire, immature internet behaviour
The fire continues to grow in the Catalinas.
Summerhaven has burned, people are crying and radio stations are selling lemonade to benefit Mt. Lemmon. One thing is certain: it was going to happen sooner or later.
We’ve lost access to remote and rarely travelled trails for the next year or so. I had been hoping to do a from-home Samaniego epic. Now I will have to wait.
One good thing — the corkscrew section on Samaniego has burned!
It’s bad that the fire jumped the other side of the ridge, but I for one will not miss the overgrowth on that part of the trail.
The last time I hiked my bike through there it was barely passable. Maybe in the future we’ll be able to get through without getting our bikes (and selves) stuck in the brush a dozen times.
The corkscrew is the section where it drops off the ridge to get around the big cliff and if you can ride it, you’re a better rider than I’ve ever seen. I can barely walk my bike through it.
Mountain bikers who live in Catalina are posting pictures on MTBR’s “passion” message board. I posted, thanking them for the pics and making comments to minimize the apparent hysteria and sensationalism.
In one thread they claimed to have ridden to areas burning in the photo, and that mule ears had already burned.
I responded that mule ears is not and has not burned in that picture. I tried, as much as possible, to be unassuming and unprovoking. My efforts failed and the usual ‘internet immaturity’ (as I call it) ensued. As much as you try to be calm and rational about it, people can always misread and bring hysterics into it.
I would be very surprised if they rode up Samaniego as high as the fire is burning, even by today. The only way they have ridden back there is by shuttling, or “insertion” as their cute euphemism goes.
I guess I shouldn’t expect them to admit they were wrong about mule ears when they can’t even admit that they shuttle trails.
I would definitely call being dropped off 6000′ feet above your stopping point a shuttle. If 6000′ feet isn’t shuttling, what is? But it seems shuttling is the name of the game in mountain biking these days. I ask: “does anyone enjoy climbing?”
I do.
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