An outdoorsman should not insist on his route being a loop. But, still, a loop is fun if you can make one. There was a possible loop from camp on my ridge.
Nothing sets you up for success like choosing a route with just the right amount of uncertainty. It is possible that the road will turn into pure rubble or become so overgrown that it is unpassable. Don't overstudy it! Don't lust for postcard scenery; try to get interested in ordinary things that you are likely to find. By "ordinary things" I mean fundamental processes that make life on planet Earth possible.
That is how I felt when the little dog and I came up on the widest and lushest swale of the whole summer. And I didn't expect it at all.
I need to spend an entire post rhapsodizing about swales. For the moment, suffice it to say that this was that magical moment when skepticism evaporated and I realized that the route was a success.
Finally we turned right to reascend the ridge, back to camp. It's best when the climb is serious enough that you can't just be playful -- and it becomes earnest, or as an old bicycle friend told me, "you have to cough snot out your eyeballs." Maybe he was right. Otherwise how would you appreciate that magical moment when you start to see blue sky through through gaps between the trees, and the blueness is virtually horizontal with you. I could start to visualize camp and a cold can of cranberry/lime sparkling water.
On top of that, something was crossing the road about 100 feet ahead of me. Something big and brown. It wasn't running "right." Was it injured? Then a large coyote glided across the road and disappeared into the forest. What was it that Shakespeare said in MacBeth?
"BANQUO. The earth hath bubbles as the water has,
And these are of them. Whither are they vanish'd?
MACBETH. Into the air, and what seem'd corporal melted
As breath into the wind."
...more so for the coyote, wraith-like and malevolent.
A second deer reached the road and turned towards the bike, as if "he" was going to head-butt me. After a couple seconds, he got his senses back and swerved away from us. I almost said, "Well, really, no good deed goes unpunished!" I saw the first deer -- the one that I thought was injured. There was no blood on its leg. In a couple seconds its gait started looking normal.
So what had almost happened? Perhaps the coyote had been chasing two deer, and was biting one of the deer in the leg. Just a couple seconds before the moment of truth, they encountered a man on a mountain bike, with his trusty little poodle running alongside the bike. The coyote got scared and broke off the encounter.
Of course it was silly of me to "stick" for Bambi instead of Wile E. Coyote. The coyote is a predator and has every right to eat.
But didn't I say earlier that I wanted to encounter things that are fundamental to life. Well, it happened.
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