"The Couch"

I take a chance to follow Mike, on a mountain bike, the other day – six miles downhill on The Couch. Soaking wet, but warm. It has rained so far today, but there is a clearing in the clouds.

Top of Fickle Hill, is windy with a chill; we quickly descent. Talk about Head First! I fly over the bars into a sweet bush that cushions the tuck and roll. Consequently, I learn how to keep one’s butt down descending the watery path.

Further down-trail I am sucked into the middle of a puddle. I hesitantly surrender to its muddy brown center – only to find it saving me, from a tree, that is indeed, flip flopping over the path, just ahead!

We ford a handful of streams-turned-creek by speeding down the bank to pedal through moving current to climb the opposite shore. There are trees here that sprout thirty trunks, all covered in fleecy bright green moss. Here, shrouded in a cloud of redwood jungle. Giant ferns grasp as I pass, lightly. This place is unearthly; yet wholly rooted – grounding.

It’s lovely. I am left SOAR, counting bruises and scrapes. I don’t know if the Couch Trail has – for me – lived up to its name …yet. But you go on the chance that maybe (just maybe), perhaps, one day, it will be a lazy boy lay, for case- EH!