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Monday, May 18: Amazing what a difference three years makes. Back in 2012 I first came down this 70-plus mile east-west trail, I just marveled at the remoteness and the beauty of the area. There was some Hydraulic Fractioning going on, but it was kind of behind the scenes, and really only noticeable in one particular area. Today….well, welcome to Frackenburg. For real. It has become prolific out here. Now first of all, I’m not going to be the guy who does the “Green” talk here. This is NOT my backyard. What I’m going to do is provide you with what I see. You make your own call. 


So on the minus side: I’m 45 miles into this trail and the frack traffic is just beyond belief, with trucks of all sorts just going everywhere, and fast! Also, there are these little “Frackburgs” everywhere - big gravel parking areas where the out-of-towners can park there RV’s and 5th wheels, en mass, to create a little hamlet of workers; the hillsides and mountainsides are scared and denuded to put in gas and oil lines and pumping facilities, and some of the North Bend Trail itself has been dug up and replanted for the laying of lines. In some areas along the trail you can detect the scent of propane wafting through the air, where in years past it was only the scent of horse and cow manure that you smelled.  


On the plus side: the economy down here is booming, and let me tell you I saw what it looked like 3 years ago….this was Appalachia personified! The poverty was staggering. I’ve seen poverty in Third World countries and in Russia, and this area was was right up there with them. Today you see pipe yards and pipe companies, well equipment yards and well equipment companies. There are businesses of every type up here that are fairly new and somehow related to the fracking industry. EVERYONE OUT HERE HAS A NEW CAR. And that’s no joke. Fracking been berry berry good to me. Old beat up roads are now newly paved. I mean I could go on and on on the plusses out here. But when I stopped in the town of Pennsboro and talked with a lovely elderly woman I got THEIR view of the situation. “We just love it,” she told me. “Today we can fix up our schools, our town center, fix up our parks and roads, and money is now coming into the towns. I’ve lived here 76 years and today I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to do to the town.” That was a locals view that is shared by many, many people down here. 


Now I’d like to think that I’m an environmentally conscious person, but this issue is more than black and white. So I honestly cannot be the guy jumping up on a pulpit and blasting the folks down here for “caving in for the almighty dollar”. Hell, it’s their lives, not mine. I have to respect them for what they think is right for their area, and if they value a prosperous economy over poverty and a pristine environment, then that’s their call, NOT mine. Ok enough said on this one. 


So needless to say I was pretty taken aback by home much change has occurred down here in the three years since we’d been to the North Bend. But even with the changes, I still LOVE this trail. It’s just wild enough to keep off the recreational folks (and that’s no knock to the recreational cyclists), and the Sussie and Billy buffs who jog down trails oblivious to the world with their headphones on, and the knucklehead dog walkers whose dogs are leashed but the leashes are Xing  the whole trail, and on and on and on. It ain’t any of that! It’s a trail where you get muddy and dirty and sometimes quite wet, but you’re still on a good, well maintained trail that’s way the hell out in nowheresville. The riding is hard, most is on like this faint dbl track that has grass growing on it. You’re NOT going to kick ass down the trail doing 20+ mph. No way. Most of the time you’re busting a gut to do even 13 mph on a mt bike. And when you come any one of the dozen tunnels, you CAN and often WILL get wet. There’s usually mud and puddles as you get close to the tunnels, from them being cut through rock mountains and all the water tends to drain down onto the lowest surface - the trail. You need headlamps to get through a couple of the longer tunnels, and get used to being chased by at least 6-10 dogs per day, cuz the trail is oftentimes in someones front or back yard! But it’s seeing American as most people don't see it. It’s really the way most of this country really is - rural. So fracking or not, I still love the North Bend. 


So I got going a bit late today, what with trying to recover from yesterdays thrashathon. My neck is sore, low back is sore, arms sore, legs sore. I’m just a sore old guy right now! Hit the trail at 9 AM and right from the start old North Bend had it going on me. I hit this mud section within the first mile and had mud spatters up to my hips. But I was totally ok with it. Then the grassy sections of trail. With the rain as of late, this was very tough to get any speed on. I mean the tires just sunk ever so slightly so as to make each and every pedal stroke way harder than if you were riding on cinder. Now there are cinder sections, and you relish them when you hit them, but really, half of this thing is the faint dbl track in the grass. The grass is well maintained and never more than ankle high. 


When you begin to hit a false flat for a few miles, that’s a good indication that you’re going to go through a tunnel, and once you get through a tunnel that a good indication that you’re going to go downhill. It’s pretty easy really, and it’s fun kind of predicting when the next tunnel will be just by feeling the terrain with your effort. I did have to use a headlamp in two tunnels, the one being darned near a half mile long with zero light in the middle. And let me tell you that is darkness for real. Some of the little towns, Pennsboro, Ellensboro, West Union, are kind of cool, throwback little places that seem to be stuck in the 30s, or 40’s or 50’s. Love these little towns. 


Made out first support stop in West Union, where I downed a sandwich and coke and then went back at it for our next stop in Ellensboro. Like I’d said previously, I’d stopped by myself in Pennsboro to take some pic when this cute little old lady asked me where I was going. And then we just chatted outside the old RR depot for a good 20 min, with me kind of doing a lot of the interviewing of her. I was really curious about how everyone out here has embraced the changes from the oil and gas industries. Honesty could have stayed for an hour chatting with the lady, but I kind of had to keep it rolling just in case of a stray thunderstorm catching up to me or Judy getting concerned I was… in harm’s way. Now we’d planned on our third and final support stop in Cairo and that’s what I was aiming for when I left Judy in Ellenboro, but she called me like 30 min in frantic, telling me that the road to Cairo was a single lane dirt road, and wanted desperately Not to go on it. I was totally good with that decision, and we decided to make it shorter today and have her go to a place that we’d both been to back in 012 - to North Bend State Park. 


Heck the trail goes right through it so I was only about 20 min from it when we talked on the cell. Judy had a big drive of 20 plus miles on winding roads - but 2-land asphalt roads! So we’re camping here for the night along the North Fork of the Hughes River, at a great little site in the shade. Weather out here was a stifling 86-degrees with 90+ % humidity. I mean I was getting out the old sweat rag and wiping my head all ride long today. 


Right now the left leg is about the same - I can ride but I limp when I walk. Good enough for me! I’m freaking riding! So I’m finish out tomorrow, hopefully early enough such that we can get home in the early afternoon. Then I’m going to take a break from the blog for about a week until we crank it up for the second and final time, like from May 28-31, and then all of June and July. So I’ll have a blog tomorrow, probably this one here since I have almost zero bars down here in the park, and I’ll have tomorrow’s blog. May both be up at the same time tomorrow. Late!