Seg #12 Great Western/Bill Riley Trail Cumming, IA: 7.8/22 sm 3/31/13
Start
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Cumming, IA
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N 41.48770W-93.76293
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N-S miles 7.8*
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End
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WindsorHgt,IA
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N 41.59936W-93.71750
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Trl lgth13.8 Ride 22mi
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| Yesterday (3/30/13) was Opening Day for Trails as proclaimed by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
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Chris was tired and opted out of the trail ride. So once the rain stopped and the volleyball games were over, I jumped on my bike in Cumming, Iowa and rode the Great Western Trail toward Des Moines. Thanks to Google Earth I was able to determine that there was nearly seven degrees of down-slope riding south to north (Cumming to Windsor Heights). In addition, with a light tail wind, I made good time, for me, especially. Too good when it came to coordinating a pick up from Chris and his pickup truck. He works long and irregular hours as hemodyalysis nurse. Hours so irregular that his slumber time is all screwed up. He can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and sleep through the most obnoxious, plus fifty decibel noises. So when I phoned him to come get me, he slept through my calls. Even though my tail feathers were chaffed to the point of pain and it appeared I was not going to connect with Chris, it was time for me to man-up and ride back to the car. Evidently Chris caught up with me in Water Works Park. He tossed my bike in the back of the truck and gave me a ride back to my car at the Cumming trailhead.
This trail ride went very smoothly due to a well maintained asphalt trail that was cleared of fallen trees and branches from winter storms. When the sun broke through the clouds and it warmed up to a comfortable fifty-five degrees, folks spilled out on the trail like ants seeking a scrap of pie. People were running, walking, biking and socializing like school has just been dismissed. I have not seen a trail "buzz-up" in such a frenzy over twenty-five years of trail riding. Maybe it was a bunch of Iowans escaping Cabin Fever.
The Great Western Trail is a true Rail-Trail that opened in 1992, a hundred years after its establishment as a rail line from Des Moines to St. Joseph, Missouri. It is named for the Chicago Great Western Company whose trains operated on this line from 1892 to 1968. The Bill Riley trail made up the last two miles of my ride. Both trails filled a latitude gap I needed completed in central Iowa. Bill Riley was a Des Moines radio and television personality known as "Mr. State Fair". He started the Iowa State Fair Talent Search in 1959. Riley went from town to town in Iowa, holding talent competitions for Iowans age 2 to 21. The best of these contestants would then be invited to compete at the Iowa State Fair. Bill Riley was the host and cheerleader for these competitions until he retired in 1996.
The most exciting part of the ride was having a jet-liner cruse over my head at a very noisy low level---seemed like a hundred feet. When some liquid dropped on me from the plane, it brought back 1960 era memories of my forest fire fighting days in the northwest. Two of my summer breaks from the University of Northern Iowa were spent in the northwest fire fighting with Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Battleground, Washington and the Deshutes National Forest, Redmond, Oregon.
The reason I thought of my forest fire fighting days was due to jet-liner landing at the Des Moines International Airport that dropping something wet on me. I instantly had a flash back to a huge uncontrolable fire near Boise, Idaho. This was one of forteen fires I fought my second year as a firefighter, when I was on a twenty-five man crew led by a very capable leader Carl Raider. We were on a fire from hell. The conditions were horrid, with extreme low humidity, winds and hundred degree heat. Starting before daylight, our crew built fire lines two ridges away (at least two miles). The idea was to complete a fire line by noon, only to have the fire work its way down a far ridge by 5 a.m., up the next ridge in thirty minutes (5:30 a.m.) and then creaped down the ridge next to us in four hours. By this time the ambient temperature was in the 90's and the wind picked up to twenty-five miles per hour. So the stage was set for a fire storm. Never have I ever, thought a fire could go so fast up a mountain. Our crew was forced to escape up a slope. As we sat at the top out of harms way the biggest noise, blast of air and dripping fire retardant, hit us. Believe it or not, the US Forest Service hired air power in the form of B-47 bombers to drop fire retardant. The pilots would scrap the tops of ridges. In this case we were sitting no more than fifty feet below the belly of the airship. I looked up and could read words less than two inches. Man that was close. But the fun was only beginning for the pilot because he was heading into a two hundred foot tower of black smoke. Just as he disappeared into the abyss, he dumped his load of red retardant. It made for a great mental picture with the silver bomber dumping red retardant and then disappearing into dense black smoke. It was exciting but that was was about it. All the firefighters on the ground would roll their eyes when some big wig would brag up the value of retardant drops. For a fact, most always these drops came to late and did not slow the fire at all, in fact, fanned the flames to greater levels. I see they still approach fire fighting today in a similar fashion. Our taxes working hard! Any way the crap that fell on me riding the Great Western Trail stirred these forty-eight year old images. I just hope what hit me was jet fuel and not a flushing toilet.
There are many wild stories about firefighting I can and will write about in this blog. For example my first season with the Gifford Pinchot National forest was an inter-regional 12 man crew. We had only one big fire that summer. It was up in a wildness region on Mt. Rainer. Being our first really big fire, made for a scary adventure for all of us. Our fire suppression crew, affectionately known as Ground Pounders, started building a fire line with shovels, pulaskis (a pick and axe combination) and back fire drip torches. I was only into my assignment a couple hours when I felt something wet dripping on my dirty arms. Ick! it was blood! Mixed with the dirt, I bet I looked pretty pathetic. John Plesa, our crew boss came running over to me and made me lie down on my back with head cocked back. With all the commotion from my boss and crew mates, all at once a sick weak feeling hit me like a the thud of a fallen two hundred foot Douglas Fir. The blood was from my nose only. Just a nose bleed; but never had I bled this much. Not any old routine bloody nose bleed. This baby was a gusher. Squeezing my nose was a waste of time. John found a fairly clean handkerchief and ripped it into strips. He took the strips and wadded them into nose plugs. After thirty minutes the faucet seemed to be closed but the minute I stood up and started working, blood spurt again. Back to my back I went and John got on the radio and reported a bleeding fire fighter. "Ya, one of my guys has nose that won't stop bleeding, he is getting weak, send a medic if you have one". About two hours latter a pack horse team driver arrived with four horses in tow. "Wha's up Ground Pounder?" he wheezed. I decided that John could explain the situation better than I could in my wasted state. Oh course, this pac fellow was not a medic and didn't pretend to be. John gave me the rest of the handkerchief to squeeze my nose and ordered me on the back of the last pack horse. "Ho! We're out of har!" the driver shouted. My horse lunged forward and cracked my neck and back with a snap. Ouch I thought. I thought it because my horse was spooked enough without me hollering ouch. It was a wonder I remained in the saddle with me trying to squeeze the handkerchief with one hand and hold on to the saddle horn with the other. Good gravy it was scary being on this last horse. I could not see ahead, only down. And, there was lots of down---like two hundred feet of down. The trail was really narrow and my horse was spooked from overhanging tree limbs, causing the beast to step off the trail way to frequently. Thank goodness only one leg went off at a time. Any more and I would be sliding down the mountain to this day. What a fear factor this horse generated in me with its slip and slide style. I never was good with heights and this horse back ride was adding to a new level of terror to my life. The good of the bad is that the pack horses stirred up tons of dust which seemed to clog my nostrils. By the time I got to the Tacoma, Washington hospital, the bleeding had stopped. No it wasn't that I was "bled out" but the first couple of hours had me worried.
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| Des Moines International Airport is to the right of the trail. When passenger jets come in for landing, a trail rider can read the fine print on the fuselage (see the fire story). The last three miles of the north-end of this trail is the Bill Riley Trail |
