It’s gonna be hot this week, especially in Rogue Valley. I’ll admit that it’s left me concerned for Sunday’s ride up at Big Elk. I checked the NOAA weather service forecast for Sunday and they are predicting a high of 88f up at Fish Lake, which is in the same area as the ride. If I had known four months ago that this week was going t be in the triple digits in Medford, I would have made Big Elk the first Honey Badger ride that starts at 9am. The logistics of getting the work out successfully to everyone about a schedule change is darn near impossible. (Note to self, next year start the Big Elk ride at 9am.)

Speaking of getting the word out about changes, I also briefly considered changing the routes to divert from the sheer amount of trees that are down across the course. I have never seen this many trees that have fallen across the roads nor have they lasted as long before they get cut out of the way. The are almost exclusively all blowdown from the last snow storm that hit in May. The ground was saturated, the trees were loaded with a wet, heavy snow, and then the woods got hit by high winds. I’ve spent a few hours already clearing the route and if everything goes as planned, I’ll finish the chainsaw work this week and the route will be cleared. Word of warning, the roads aren’t wide open as the vast majority of the trees have been cut back to make the road passable, but it’s not perfect. So fat it’s been about 7 hrs of saw work, a couple of tanks of premix, half pint or so of bar oil, a couple of sharpenings, and countless battery recharges. If you want to kick down a couple of shekels to offset the cost, click on over to my Buy Me A Coffee link.