Coop's Corner: Strap Carnage - A Tugging Tale

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Strap Carnage - A Tugging Tale - 2021/06/28

While I'm compiling the extensive collection of photos and videos from last weeks trip, I thought I'd quickly highlight a couple of events from the trip. Here's a view to the north and west from my Whiteface Reservoir National Forest Campground. Hoyt Lakes is the town in the upper left, a mining town that was planned for the mine's hired help and was my closest source for gas and supplies. Their nice array of planned neighborhood streets an example of a company town up on the Iron Range.

After the bike was off the trailer Monday morning, I wanted to check out and confirm that I'd be able to buy gas all week since choices were very limited in every other direction and the other directions are where I was hoping to spend time exploring. The north/south road center left is Forest Road 130, also known as Mooseline Road. The cyan areas on the map are Superior National Forest.

The loop left center is FR790 and as I went past the southern end, it looked a bit grown over, no tracks, tall grass, the woods encroaching on the side. Experience (finally) teaches me to tread with care on these roads while solo adventuring. This part of our state has little mud or sand, instead lots of gravel with potentially low, swampy areas. Recently very dry, Sunday there was rain all day so I was justified with my caution.

Both roads cross a small St. Louis River, the very same river that grows to flow into the Duluth/Superior area at the western edge of Lake Superior. As I headed north and came upon the north end of the 790 loop, that end of the road looked much better. I had time, I had enough fuel so I thought I'd go clockwise as far as I reasonably could and maybe just maybe make it out the other end.

The intrepid readers among us may have already noticed the gap in the red line. A big tree, too long and too solid to just push out of the way was across my path and based on that scale down in the lower right hand corner of the map, maybe 45-50 Moose length in from the main road. The bright yellow-handled saw that I bought and brought along for this very purpose was conveniently back in the T&C, down in the Stow N Go well that once housed seats. With that saw I'd have been able to cut a notch that would have allowed Himalayan passage. I didn't take a photo, had to backtrack which wasn't a hardship at all.

Later that same day, further north and east I came upon another tree that had been across the road. Normally a very patient adventurer, I wasn't about to be turned away again. I had my 12mm ROK Straps along but I was highly doubtful that they'd be up to the task. Now if I'd have had the 25mm ROK's along, they may have worked.

Instead, I had to get the Big Ones out.....this is what's known to those of us in the trade as Strap Carnage. Sometimes the price to pay.

As long as I was going to bother, pulled far enough to make a difference. Next time I best bring the stronger Yellow straps.

Another couple hundred street miles on that rear tire and I may have had my hands full. Speaking of trouble, the secret to success with an endeavor such as this is to Anchor Low. Pulling High could bring about a poppa wheelie, the potential for an entirely new set of frustrating problems.

Clear and on my way, these orange straps aren't much good to me any longer...too short.

2 comments:

redlegsridesJune 28, 2021 at 6:33 PM
Pulling trees with one's motorcycle....hmmmm? Never really occurred to me.
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)