Riding the forest roads

I went for a mountain bike ride today on the Anthem. I decided to ride the Crotte Brook area. I rode the Crotte to the Holmes Camp Road to Hwy M back to Crotte over to the West Crotte, back out to Hwy M and back tracked back to West Mail Route Road. On the way back across the Holmes Camp Road I saw this little trail and it looked interesting. It went further than I thought. When I got to the end I checked my mileage and it was exactly 2 miles long. This trail is a gem...will be doing it again. I logged 36 miles today...2 hours 52 minutes of saddle time...and no vehicles or atv's...excellent. I started the ride at 4:00 pm...if I would have been earlier I would have seen vehicles. I will try to get some more miles on roads like these, preparing for the Chequamegon Fat Tire on September 13th. This is the entrance to the rut road I found.

What an great place to ride.

Some of these little trails lead to bear bait stations. That is where this one led to.

This is the bait station. These are used for Black Bear hunting with dogs. The wood covers a hole in the ground in which is where the goodies are...sweet goods, food scraps and etc. No meat products are allowed. The wood is used so the smaller critters...coons and etc...can't pilfer the goodies. The bear of course are strong enough to move it. The hunting groups have several of these. Notice the sand surrounding the bait. In the early morning's during season, the group will split up and each take a few of the baits station's to check out. They look for the size of the bear track in the sand...compare notes...usually take the biggest track...put the dogs on that track and they chase the bear down...tree it ...the hunters come in and shoot it. Some people do not agree with this. I am neutral. There are a lot of black bear in the area. I have seen nine different bear on just the bicycle, plus many more while commuting. The population needs to be controlled some how.

This is my favorite back road to ride.

This is what most of the roads looked like I rode today.