Ester Dome Ride

Yesterday afternoon, I rode up to the top of Ester Dome, which is located just northwest of Fairbanks. The last time I was up there was back in September when I ran the Equinox Marathon. After the first half mile the pavement ended and the rest of the climb to the top was on dirt and gravel roads. It seemed like a long way up even on the bike. I vaguely remember the turn offs and road crossings from the marathon but seemed to have successfully blanked out much of that day from my memory. (I still hate running even more than ever!)

Many of the commercial TV and radio stations have their towers up here as it is the high point for the area at 2,323 ft. As you may notice in the lower photo, the rain had temporarily cleared out the smoke but you can see it building up again from the fire to the east which is on the right. I learned that I need to carry an easily deployed wheel chock since I don't have a parking brake. I do have folding chocks in case I need to remove a wheel but they are packed with all of the tools.

Sunday evening was spent looking for a different kind of geocache. The GPS coordinates just gave the starting point followed by directions following compass bearings. They were careful to specify using an uncorrected magnetic compass followed by distances ranging from 90 feet to 0.23 miles. It ended with 77 paces into the woods following your compass. It felt like we were following a pirate treasure map.

We found the ammo box in the woods right where they said it would be but the distances were more difficult to measure. I was using the Nike+ app to measure distances which used GPS. A simple pedometer would probably have worked better as that is what I think they used. The distances listed were always shorter than what I came up with. Fortunately, the distances were usually to trail intersections so we were able to figure out where we needed to be.

This photo was taken along the trail leading down to the "T" Field behind the university. The starting point was the Large Animal Research Station so this geocache was good for a few miles of trail walking. Nothing wrong with that.