Did any of you have Natasha Lockey for your coach? She's one of my pals.

We did a little backcountry ride this weekend. A friend of mine is the local anonymous trail gnome for some forest service trails and does a lot of the clearing and maintenance for them as a volunteer. He took DH and I on a tour that was the backside of where most people ususally ride. He had just cleared it last weekend. We started from the saddle where we parked the car, and then did a very long descent on singletrack through cedar forest. We climbed out on an old logging road. When Al said there was a fire road climb out I initially cringed, but this was an amazing fireroad.... it hadn't been driven on in year as it's blocked to any sort of traffic, it's a railroad grade of 2-3%, and it was all grassy! So it was a super easy spin out to the top. I saw a little bear, and DH saw two newborn fawns. DH also had numerous mechanical but nothing so major as to totally ruin the ride. He did crack his middle chain ring so he could only use his small ring.
Our friend took his rig down to the bottom where we'd left our rig, and we rode another singletrack descent from the saddle down the front side, what fun.